S 


GINAL  "MWH"  McKENNA 


-:'r»> 

'" 


UN 

I    ° 


SAN  DIEGO 


STORIES 

BY  THE 

ORIGINAL  "JAWN"  McKENNA 

From  "Archy  Road" 

OF  THE 

SUN  WORSHIPERS  CLUB 

Off  McKinley  Park 


IN  THEIR 


Political  Tales  and  Reminiscences 


CHICAGO 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,    1918, 
BY   JOHN   J.    M'KENNA 


JOHN  /•'.   HIGCINS. 

Printer. 

376-380  West  Monroe  Street 
•80 


JOHN  J.  MCKENNA 

John  J.  McKenna  was  born  at  Grassy  Point  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  Hudson  River,  New  York  State.  Been  active  in  politics  in  Chi- 
cago for  forty  years.  Been  a  member  of  the  County  and  State 
Central  Committees.  Was  personally  acquainted  and  socially  friend- 
ly with  almost  every  person  that  has  taken  an  active  part  in  poli- 
tics, both  the  Republicans  and  Democrats,  during  the  years  1876 
to  1916. 


CONTENTS 


Fourth  of  July  Oration  by  Barney  O'Flynn  Before 
the  Sun  Worshipers  Club  in  McKinley  Park 11-16 

A  "Grave"  Mistake 17-19 

A  Tribute  to  McKenna 20-21 

Mrs  Jim  Kennedy  Attends  a  Meeting  at  Baker's  Hall 
and  Tells  McKenna  What  She  Thinks  of  Their 
Goings  on 22-24 

Nicholas  Ryan,  the  Club's  Statistician,  Induces  Mrs. 
Jim  Kennedy  to  Address  a  Meeting  of  the  Affiliated 
(Republican  Clubs  of  the  Fifth  Ward  at  Baker's 
Hall,  and  She  Tells  Them  Something 25-28 

Dennis  Dwyer  on  the  Necessity  of  Preparedness, 
Practically  Demonstrated  29-30 

Conditions  Created  by  the  War  Cloud  Plays  Havoc 
With  Pat  Price's  35th  Precinct  Club 31-32 

Denny  McManus  of  the  41st  Precinct  on  the  Re- 
moval of  the  Hyphen 33-36 

A  War  Reflection 37 

Old  "Turrence"  Dougherty's  Oration  Before  the  Sun 

Worshipers  Club  at  McKinley  Park 39-44 

Continuance  of  Old  Dougherty's  Oration 45-50 

Conclusion  of  Old  Dougherty's  Discourse 51-56 

The  War  Is  a  Bad  Omen  for  Pat  English  and  His 

Affiliated  Club   57-58 

The  Diplomacy  of  Tom  Sheehan,  the  Buffet  Keeper 

of  Archer  Road 59-61 

Jerry  Duggan,  President  of  the  40th  Precinct  Re- 
publican Club,  in  Confab  with  McKenna 62-64 

Speech  Delivered  by  Old  Man  Anthony  Devlin  After 

Taking  Two  Sups  of  Sheehan's  Whiskey 65-68 

Little  Johnnie's   Inquiry 69 

Thoughts   of  the   Hour 70 

Young  Dougherty,  the  Lawyer,  on  Practical  Govern- 
ment and  Nicholas  Ryan's  Views  on  a  few  other 

Things    71-75 

More  Truth  Than  Poetry. 76 

Ryan  on  Loyalty  to  the  Flag 77-80 


CONTENTS— Continued. 

Pat  Price  Before  the  Sun  Worshipers  Club  at  the 
McKinley  Park  on  his  Return  from  Vacation.    His 

Fish  Story  is  Good 81-86 

Ryan,   the   Statistician,  and   McKcnna  in  Conversa- 
tion   87-92 

Barney  Mulligan,  the  Far-Down  Linen  Peddler,  on 

the  Money  Question 93-98 

Ryan  Induces  Mulligan  to  Continue  His  Discourse  on 

the  Money  Question 99-105 

Lamentations  of  the  Pessimist  Members  of  the  Fifth 

Ward  Republican  Club 106 

The  Eagle  Society's  Picnic  Has  its  Effect  on  Mac's 

Orators.    He  Tells  His  Own  Story 107-114 

Ryan  on  Press  and  Politics 1115-121 

Lamentations  of  the  Old  Friends'  Club 122 

Pat  Price  and  Barney  O'Flynn  on  the  Good  Old  Days 

in  Politics   123-127 

The  Days  of  Real  Sport 128 

Ryan  and  McKenna  in  Conversation 129-134 

A  Few  Stories  by  Members  of  the  Sun  Worshipers 

Club  on  Old  Days  in  Politics 135-141 

Toast  to  Our  Flag 142 

McKenna  in  Reminiscences  of  the  Chicago  Fire  of 

1871   143-159 

One  of  the  Sun  Worshipers  Gone  to  Meet  His  Re- 
ward   160-161 

Chicago  as  it  Looked  in  Other  Days 163-171 

Nicholas  Ryan  in  a  Patriotic  Mood 173-179 

Mind  Pictures 180 

Anthony  Devlin  on  The  Old  Days  in  Politics. . .  181-186 

McKenna's  Candidacy  for  Chaplain 187-191 

"Times  Are  Changed'' — Dwyer  to  Mac 193-195 

Members  of  the  Sun  Worshipers  Club  in  Confab.  197-201 
A  Christmas  Wake  Story  from  the  Brighton 203 

They   Have  Got  Ryan  Guessing 209-212 

Old  Anthony  Devlin  Airs  His  Views 213-216 

The  Old  Days  in  Halsted  Street 217-230 

Jerry   Duggan  Airing   His   Views 231-235 

Con  O'Brien,   the  41st  Precinct  Philosopher. .  .236-238 

Dougherty's    St.   Patrick's   Day 239-241 

Old  Anthony  Devlin  in  a  Reminiscent  Mood, . ,  .242-246 


INTRODUCTION. 

I  wrote  these  stories  so  that  the  old  fellows 
may  enjoy  reading  them.  It's  reminiscent  of 
things  that  they  all  passed  through  in  their 
day,  and  the  young  of  the  rising  generation 
have  many  times  heard  the  old  folks  telling  of. 

There  is  more  truth  than  poetry  in  most  all 
of  it,  and  if  it  don't  make  you  laugh  there  is 
nothing  said  that  will  offend  you. 

The  Old  Fellows  here  mentioned  all  enjoyed 
a  long  life  and  their  knowledge  has  come  from 
the  school  of  experience.  There  is  none  of  them 
but  what  can  tell  Bunk  a  mile  away.  The  young 
generation  may  think  they're  handing  them 
something  new,  but  their  new  tricks  are  but  a  re- 
polish,  put  on  to  the  same  old  tricks,  that  the 
old  fellows  have  seen  and  heard  and  went  up 
against  manys  and  manys  the  time.  So  there 
ye  have  it. 

JOHN  J.  McKENNA. 


FOURTH  OF  JULY  ORATION  BY  BARNEY 
O'FLYNN  BEFORE  THE  SUN  WORSHIP- 
ERS' CLUB  IN  M'KINLEY  PARK. 

"Well,"  said  Nicholas  Ryan  of  the  Thirty- 
first  Precinct,  "we  induced  Barney  O'Flynn  to 
give  us  a  Fourth  of  July  oration  below  at  the 
McKinley  monument  at  the  McKinley  Park. 
Barney  is  one  of  the  sun  worshipers  that  hold 
their  confabs  at  the  McKinley  monument  every 
day  in  the  week.  They  have  the  Daily  News 
Almanac,  the  Bible,  Shakespeares  works, 
and  the  divil  only  knows  what  else  hid  away  in 
the  crevices  of  the  monument  waiting  for  some 
of  their  cronies  to  make  a  careless  remark. 
Then  like  a  lot  of  buzzards  they  jump  upon  him 
with  what  they  call  '  their  documentary  ivi- 
dence'  to  prove  his  assertion  was  false;  and 
from  ten  to  four  every  day  that's  their  job,  ar- 
guing on  all  the  momentuous  questions  of  the 
day,  pro  and  con,  mostly  con. 

"Barney  has  had  a  shovel  in  where  the  dig- 
ging was  aisey  and  the  pay  good  in  every  public 


12  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

department  since  the  second  day  he  left  Castle 
Garden  Park. 

"  'Well/  says  Barney,  beginning  his  dis- 
course, 'ye  say  ye  like  to  hear  the  truth,  but  I 
know  ne'er  a  one  of  you  mean  it.  What  ye 
want  and  what  ye  injoy  is  the  soft  soap  talk 
and  to  hear  yer  neighbors  and  your  public  offi- 
cials denounced.  The  worse  ye  hear  of  thim,  the 
better  ye  like  it.  But  ne'er  a  one  of  ye  like  to 
hear  the  truth  about  yerself.  This  is  the  Fourth 
of  July,'  said  Barney,  'the  day  we  celebrate— 
or  did  celebrate — before  Andrew  Carnegie  took 
the  noise  out  of  the  firecrackers,  and  now  the 
kids  balk  to  celebrate  on  squibs.  At  any  rate 
ye  know  what  we  used  to  celebrate  for,  but 
that's  a  long  time  ago  and  since  thin  Congress 
has  passed  resolutions,  and  so  while  the  resolu- 
tions last  let  us  not  be  casting  up,  old  sores. 
That  would  be  like  McGlinn  and  Ryan's  truce. 
Every  one  thought  the  battle  was  over.  Mc- 
Glinn in  his  kindness  said  to  Eyan,  "Now,  that 
I  am  thinking  as  you  are,"  thinking  that  Ryan 
had  the  same  kind  of  thoughts  as  himself,  when 
up  jumped  Ryan  saying,  "f  you  are,  com^  out- 
side and  try  it  over  again,  and  there  it  is  for 
ye."  Well,  it's  the  Fourth  anyhow.  We  may 
not  feel  as  enthusiastic  as  we  did  whin  we  held 
our  picnics  and  shot  giant  firecrackers  and  used 
the  Milwaukee  steins.  But  it  is  allright  for  us 
old  chaps. 

"  'But,'  said  he,  pointing  to  the  five  thousand 
young  men  and  women  that  ye  see  there  below 
in  the  park  fields.  Said  he,  "They  have  worked 


Ball   Game,   McKinlej    Park. 


Lawn   Tennis   Court, 


14  MCKENNA'S  STOMES 

hard  all  week,  and  they  are  now  engaged  in 
their  baseball,  basket  ball,  croquet,  and  tennis, 
and  every  game  of  fun  that  you  can  mention. 
Their  shouts  and  cries  of  joy  and  laughter  make 
the  world  what  the  Lord  intinded  it  should  b*, 
—a  place  of  contintment  and  happiness.  There,* 
said  he,  pointing,  '  is  the  controlling  influence  of 
the  world.  Look  at  that  crowd.  Then  look  at 
the  few  we  have  here.  That's  the  world's  way,' 
said  he.  'When  ye  are  out  of  that  class  the  divil 
a  one  pays  any  serious  attention  to  ye  but  the 
preacher,  the  doctor,  and  the  undertaker;  that 
is,  if  you  are  well  insured.  If  not,  I  know  of  no 
one  but  God  that  has  any  time  or  room  for  ye.' 

*'  'The  older  ye  are,  the  more  it  costs  to 
watch  ye.  In  your  primary  election  the  cost  to 
watch  ye  have  the  tax  payers  robbed  and  the 
county  treasurer  busted,  and  what  the  divil  good 
have  ye  done.  Ye  are  changing  and  rechanging 
the  laws  and  whin  it  is  all  over  and  the  money 
spint  ye  look  up  and  see  what  ye  have  done  and 
as  Ryan  said,  whin  I  showed  him  the  members 
of  the  Supreme  Court  as  they  were  standing  in 
front  of  their  building  in  Springfield:  "Be- 
gorra,"  said  Ryan,  "they  are  only  min  after 
all." 

"  'In  the  old  days,'  said  he,  'the  judges  and 
clerks  of  primary  election  volunteered  thei* 
services.  Ye  might  get  a  "Democratic  black  eyft 
or  a  Republican  black  eye,  but  it  costs  the  tax 
payers  nothing  and  under  that  system  we  nomi- 
nated such  min  as  Samuel  J,  Tilden,  ROSCOQ 


OKATION  15 

Conklin,  Lincoln,  Palmer,  Douglas,  Oglesby, 
and  the  old  man  Carter  H.  Harrison,  old  maw 
McAllister,  and  old  man  Gary  as  judges  and  b 
cost  the  taxpayers  nothing  to  nominate  them. 
Ye  haven't  money  enough  today  to  pay  for 
watching  ye  to  nominate  min  like  them  min- 
tioned.  Ye  became  so  dishonest  as  Democrats 
and  Republicans  ye  couldn't  trust  yourselves  to 
manage  your  party  affairs.  Ye  had  to  have 
laws  made  and  min  appointed  to  watch  your- 
? fives,  and  it's  busted  the  tax  payers  to  pay  for 
the  job.  In  the  old  days  party  min  walked  ten 
miles  to  hear  his  party  candidate  denounce  the 
opposite  side.  Under  yer  new  expensive  plan  it 
would  take  a  cabaret  and  minstrel  show  with 
free  lunch  combined  to  induce  ye  to  walk  a 
block  to  hear  any  one — and  ye  are  still  nomi- 
nating men  and  plan  to  make  them  honest.  Ye 
are  wasting  money;  your  undertaking  is  too 
great;  for  we  read  in  the  good  book  when  the 
Creator  himself  turned  his  back  to  look  at  some 
of  his  other  creations  ye  stripped  the  tree  of 
every  apple,  and  now,'  said  Barney,  'ye  are  try- 
ing to  do  what  the  Creator  himself  could  not  do 
for  ye. 

"  'Now,'  said  Barney,  'if  the  politician  had 
the  same  opportunity  to  make  his  promise  good 
as  has  the  preacher,  the  world  would  always  be 
like  what  it  is  to  the  young.  The  preacher's 
promise  is  fulfilled  after  you  reach  the  grave 
if  you  keep  the  commandments,  and  ne'er  a  one 
ever  returns  to  confront  him  as  to  broken  prom- 
ises. But  with  the  politician,  whin  the  election 


16  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

is  over  then  his  promises  are  staring  him  in  the 
face  with  not  one  meal  ticket  to  go  round  for 
the  one  hundred  hungry  applicants.  It's  the 
divil's  job  to  face  ye  for  yer  votes,  but  when  ye 
come  for  the  expected  meal  ticket  it  takes  all 
the  joy  out  of  life.  That's  why  most  of  ye  en- 
joy hearing  yer  officials  denounced,  for  that's 
the  only  pleasure  most  of  ye  get  out  of  the  game. 
But  yonder  in  the  field  ye  see  yer  answer  in  the 
youne'  folks.  A  divil  a  care  has  any  one  of  thim 
on  thir  mind  but  for  a  good  time.  Now,  that's 
the  world 's  way.  All  the  preachers  in  the  world 
couldn't  change  thim.  That  numerous  crowd 
you  see  there  enjoying  thimselves  on  the  park 
fields,  if  they  live  long  enough,  they  will  be  here 
as  we  are,  but  we  will  not  be  here  and  there  will 
be  others  in  their  place  on  the  ball  fields  and 
when  they  stand  here  as  we  are  they  will  be  in 
the  small  minority  as  we  are,  for  that's  the  way 
with  the  world,  for  boys  will  be  boys,  and  when 
old  Toney  Pastor  sang  the  song,  "Go  It  While 
You  Are  Young,  My  Boys,  for  When  Ye  Get 
Old  You  Can't,"  he  had  the  gang  with  him,  ani 
so  it  will  go  on  until  Gabriel  blows  his  horn.'  '' 


THE  "GRAVE"  MISTAKE.  THE  MISHAP  IN 
THE  BURIAL  OF  DINNY  QUILLIGAN  OF 
THE  36TH  PRECINCT  REPUBLICAN  CLUB. 

In  the  36th  Precinct  Republican  Club  of  the 
Fifth  Ward  a  great  mishap  took  place  last  week. 
Jimmie  Duggan  made  the  following  report  of 
the  occurrence : 

"Begorra,  McKenna,  we  had  an  exciting  time 
of  it  this  week.  We  were  appointed  to  conduct 
the  funeral  arrangements  of  one  of  our  mem- 
bers, one  Dinny  Quilligan,  a  little  Kerry  man 
that  come  over  to  us  as  a  mimber  in  the  Blaine 
election. 

Dinny  was  a  good  Catholic  and  always  boast- 
ed that  he  gave  character  to  the  Republican 
ticket  by  putting  the  cross  in  the  circle  at  the 
head  of  the  ticket  on  each  election  day.  Well, 
to  be  short  in  me  story,  we  took  the  remains  of 
Dinny  to  the  Grand  Trunk  depot  at  49th  and 
Ashland  avenue  to  meet  the  funeral  train  for 
Mt.  Olivet.  When  we  got  there,  we  found  that 
a  Nagro  funeral  was  taking  place  at  the  same 
time. 

"We  put  Dinny 's  coffin  in  the  car  set  apart 
for  that  purpose,  whin  along  came  the  Blacka- 
mores  and  they  did  the  same,  Begorra,  Me- 


18  MCKENNA'S  STOKIES 

kenna,  as  true  as  I  am  tellin'  ye,  the  Nigger's 
coffin  and  Dinny's  was  as  like  as  two  cherries. 

"The  train  started  and  the  first  stop  was  at 
the  Nagro  graveyard.  Bedad,  the  Nagroes  in 
takin'  off  as  they  supposed  the  coffin  of  the  Na- 
gro, they  took  away  with  thim  the  corpse  of 
Dinny  Quilligan.  When  we  reached  Mt.  Olivet, 
we,  as  we  supposed,  took  out  the  coffin  of  Dinny 
and  put  it  on  a  small  iron  car  they  have  there 
for  the  purpose,  and  away  we  started  to  Mt. 
Olivet. 

"Just  as  we  were  about  to  lower  the  coffin 
into  the  grave, — as  is  a  good  ould  Irish  custom, 
—Kelly,  the  undertaker,  cried  out,  'Thim  that 
wish  to  take  the  last  look  at  the  remains,  will 
step  forward.'  Kelly  unscrewed  the  little  lid 
of  the  coffin.  When  Mary  Ellen,  Dinny's  wife, 
took  a  peep  into  the  coffin,  she  let  a  yell  out  of 
her  that  would  raise  the  dead: 

"  'What  have  they  done  with  Dinny  Quilli- 
gan from  Kerry?'  she  cried.  'They've  taken  him 
from  me  and  left  me  a  man  that's  as  black  as 
the  ace  of  spades. ' 

"Begobs,  at  that  we  all  gave  a  jump  forward; 
thin  I  remembered  the  resimblance  of  the  cof- 
fins. Back  we  went  with  the  Nagro  on  the  little 
car  to  the  depot  at  Mt.  Olivet  only  to  find  no 
train  would  be  due  for  two  hours.  Well,  thin 
we  engaged  a  haywagon  team  that  was  standing 
by,  put  the  Nagro  corpse  on  the  wagon  and 
started  for  the  Nagro  cemetery  a  mile  away. 
When  we  got  to  the  Nagro  cemetery,  the  Na- 


THE  "GRAVE"  MISTAKE  19 

groes  were  all  coming  out.  We  let  a  yell  out  of 
us  like  a  lot  of  wild  dervishes — 'Where  is  he,' 
said  we  all  together.  '  Ye  have  buried  the  wrong 
man/  said  we.  Well,  sir,  there  was  near  four 
funerals  in  a  minute.  Spades,  pickaxes  and 
razors  were  in  view. 

* '  They  had  Dinny  planted  and  the  top  of  the 
grave  was  as  smooth  as  the  palm  of  your  hand, 
with  sunflowers  scattered  on  the  grave  and  a 
sign  erected  saying  'Here  lies  Moseby  Jackson 
Johnson '. 

"Well,  it  was  but  a  short  time  till  Dinny 's 
remains  was  on  top  of  the  ground  again  and 
back  to  Mt.  Olivet.  'Well,'  said  Mary  Ellen, 
'God  bless  that  ould  Irish  custom  of  takin'  that 
last  look  at  the  remains,  else,'  said  she,  'I'd  be 
layin'  alongside  of  a  man  as  black  as  the  ace  of 
spades  until  such  times  as  Gabriel  would  blow 
his  horn  on  the  day  of  resurrection.' 

"Bedad,  McKenna,  that  will  be  a  day  long  to 
be  remembered  by  the  members  of  the  36th  Pre- 
cinct Republican  Club." 


20  McKENNA's  STOEJES 

A  TRIBUTE  TO  McKENNA. 

This  week  PUBLIC  SAFETY  is  favored  with  a 
few  lilting  lines  by  way  of  tribute  to  '  *  The  Poet 
of  Archey  Road" — John  J.  McKenna.  It  is  by 
way  of  a  pean  of  triumph  at  the  recognition  re- 
cently awarded  Mac  by  Governor  Lowden — an 
important  state  office.  It  purports  to  come  from 
a  political  follower  of  John  J.'s,  but  is  really 


T.   J.  QUIGLEY. 

To  My  Literary  Friend,  John  J.  McKenna,  the  Chief  In- 
spector of  Private  Employment  Agencies! 

penned  by  a  South  Side  business  man  who  has 
been  a  lifelong  friend.  He  is  an  old-time  ball 
player  that  some  of  the  older  boys  will  recall 
when  they  see  his  name :  Here  it  is : 


21 

Oh,  Mollie  Dear  an'  did  ye  hear  the  only  joyful  news 
I  read  in  all  th'  papers  since  Wilson  walloped  Hughes; 
Cheer  up  my  Mollie  Darlin,'  no  more  you'll  sigh  at  all, 
My  friend  John  J.  McKenna  has  th'  biggest  job  of  all. 

Tis  true   he   is   Republican,   but  he's   always  on  the 

square. 
An'  never  ask  ye  how  ye  vote,  if  you  need  him  he  is 

"there"; 

He  spent  more  coin  in  politics  than  any  in  the  ward. 
An'  'till  today,  'tis  safe  to  say,  he  got  the  least  reward. 

He  makes  no  flights  at  orath'ry,  but  in  primaries  can't 

be  beat, 

In  every  fight  for  twinty  years,  he's  never  known  defeat; 
He  put  the  arch  in  "Archey  road"  where  Dooley's  fame 

begun, 
The  avenue  made  famous  by  Finley  Peter  Dunne. 

There's  lots  of  "gifted  gabbists"  who  are  sociable  to 

meet, 
But  when  it  comes  to  favor  you,  they  wouldn't  cross 

th'  street; 
So    cheer    up,    Mollie    Darlin',    an'    holler   Lou  (w)  den 

strong, 
Till  my  good  friend  John  J.  lands  me,  and  I  hope  it 

won't  be  long. 

He's  just  th'  man  to  fill  th'  place,  he  had  his  share  of 

strife, 

A  reader  of  real  character,  in  every  walk  of  life; 
From  th'  brick  yard  to  th'  State  House  he  climbed  th' 

hill  of  fame, 
An'  T  know  I'll  not  be  out  of  work  while  Johnnie's  in 

th'  game. 


MRS.  JIM  KENNEDY  ATTENDS  A  MEETING 
AT  BAKER'S  HALL  AND  TELLS  M'KENNA 
WHAT  SHE  THINKS  OF  THEIR  GO- 
INGS ON. 

1 '  Mr.  McKenna, ' '  said  Mrs.  Kennedy,  ' 1 1  was 
down  at  your  last  Republican  meeting  at  Bak- 
er's Hall.  My  husband  acts  queer  many's  the 
time  after  attending  those  meetings,  and  I 
wanted  to  satisfy  my  curiosity  as  to  what  go- 
ings on  you  do  be  having.  I  will  never  forget 
that  talker  you  had  there.  But,  let  me  tell  you, 
McKenna,  when  the  women  folks  get  on  to  the 
voting  business,  ye '11  not  be  able  to  pull  the  wool 
over  their  eyes  as  ye  do  over  the  men  voters, 
with  ye'r  soft  soap  political  talks. 

"Years  ago  I  attended  a  meeting  where 
George  Francis  Train  was  the  speaker,  and  I 
also  heard  Teddy  Roosevelt  talk.  Train  and 
Teddy  had  the  same  accent,  but  Train  always 
wore  a  white  suit  and  white  gloves  when  he 
spoke.  Teddy  is  rougher,  but  they  both  were 
sensational.  It  was  like  riding  in  a  car  where 
one  wheel  was  off  the  track,  to  hear  them.  You 
were  always  expecting  something  serious  to 


MRS.  JIM  KENNEDY  ATTENDS  23 

happen.  But  in  their  palmiest  days,  for  real 
fast  talkin'  and  sensation,  they  were  not  in  the 
class  with  that  Col.  Wiley  from  Waco,  Texas, 
that  you  had  address  the  meeting  at  Baker's 
Hall. 

"The  colonel  drew  a  picture  of  all  the  silver 
in  all  the  mines  of  the  world,  and  all  the  silver 
in  the  world  now  outside  of  the  mines,  and 
turned  it  all  into  silver  dollars,  at  the  ratio,  as 
he  said,  of  '  sixteen  to  one'.  The  pile  was  so 
great  that  it  made  Mount  Arion,  the  highest 
mountain  in  the  world,  look  like  a  mole  hill.  We 
all  had  a  crimp  in  our  necks  from  looking  up  at 
the  mountain  of  silver  dollars.  I  don't  know 
how  he  could  hold  all  the  statistics  in  his  head 
that  he  presented  to  prove  his  assertions.  He 
used  his  arms  as  though  he  was  swimming,  and 
his  hair  stood  up,  and  his  coat  tails  waved,  and 
the  two  eyes  in  his  head  were  like  two  coals  of 
fire  with  the  enthusiasm  that  was  in  him. 

"I'm  told  that  Tom  Sheehan,  the  saloon- 
keeper, after  listening  to  him  for  a  while,  got 
so  disgusted  with  silver  as  money  that  he  start- 
ed down  stairs  and  ordered  his  bartenders  to 
take  no  more  of  it  in  exchange  for  his  good  ci- 
gars and  whisky. 

"I  am  told  that  a  man's  life  would  be  in  dan- 
ger that  would  offer  a  Canadian  quarter  in  ex- 
change for  drinks  in  the  neighborhood,  after 
Col.  Wiley  finished  in  the  denunciation  of  silver, 
as  the  medium  of  exchange,  at  the  ratio,  as  he 
said,  of  'sixteen  to  one'.  And  when  the  Colonel 


24  MC]£ENNA'S  STORIES 

finished  on  the  silver  question,  he  started  in  and 
made  every  one  of  them  foolish  min  believe,  be- 
cause of  their  bein'  American  citizens  they  were 
the  aiqual  of  the  king. 

"When  Jim,  my  husband,  gits  that  soft  soap 
talk  and  a  few  sips  of  Sheehan's  whisky  with 
it,  he  begins  to  act  like  a  king  and  say  foolish 
things. 

"Said  I  to  him  after  the  meeting,  when  he 
began  acting  strange,  said  I:  'Jim,  have  sinse, 
and  don 't  believe  all  that  ye  hear,  for  tomorrow 
morning,  when  you  are  wending  your  way  over 
to  work  in  the  cellar  at  Armour's  packing  plant 
before  it  is  yet  daylight,  that  Col.  Wiley  from 
Waco,  Texas,  and  McKenna  will  be  on  the  broad 
of  their  backs  in  the  bed.' 

"Says  I,  'Jim,  ye 're  no  king;  and  as  for  that 
Col.  Wiley  and  his  imaginary  money  pile,  I'm 
tould  he  borryed  a  quarter  of  Cassidy  to  pay  his 
way  back  to  the  city.  They  say  he  knows  how 
to  run  everybody  else's  business  but  his  own, 
and  he's  always  broke  himself.' 

"Now,  McKenna,  let  me  say  to  you  again 
when  the  women  folks  get  on  to  voting,  that 
kind  of  soft-soap  talk  won't  go.  Ye  politicians 
will  have  to  think  up  something  new,  or  get  out 
of  the  business." 


NICHOLAS  RYAN,  THE  CLUB'S  STATIST! 
CIAN,  INDUCES  MRS.  JIM  KENNEDY  TO 
ADDRESS  A  MEETING  OF  THE  AFFILI- 
ATED REPUBLICAN  CLUBS  OF  THE  5TH 
WARD  AT  BAKER'S  HALL,  AND  SHE 
TELLS  THEM  SOMETHING. 

* '  McKenna, ' '  said  Nicholas  Eyan  of  the  Thir- 
ty-first Precinct,  "I  gave  the  boys  the  treat  of 
their  lives  at  the  meeting  of  the  Affiliated  Clubs 
of  Brighton,  held  at  Baker's  Hall.  I  had  Mrs. 
Jim  Kennedy  address  the  meeting.  She  told 
them  something  that  they  will  long  remember. 
She  said :  '  Now  that  ye  induced  me  to  talk,  it 's 
not  soft  soap  I'm  going  to  hand  ye,  but  the 
plain,  unvarnished  truth.  I  know  it's  at  home 
women  ought  to  be,  instead  of  talkin'  to  ye,' 
said  she;  'we  are  never  done  for  work  there. 
But  ye  men  have  so  neglected  your  duty  in  yer 
mad  rush  for  the  dollar,  if  we  women  don't  do 
something  the  greatest  idea  of  government  that 
was  ever  left  to  a  people  will  be  lost  to  us  for- 
ever ;  in  the  chase  for  the  dollar  you  forgot  your 


26  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

God,  your  country  and  mankind,'  said  she. 
'And  it's  because  of  this  condition,'  said  she, 
'that  the  women  of  the  country  are  asking  for 
the  right  of  franchise  on  all  questions  pertain 
ing  to  government;  and  we  will  take  nothing 
short  of  it.  The  mothers  of  the  country  will 
have  time  to  turn  their  minds  to  something  tha; 
vvdll  be  for  the  benefit  of  mankind,  for  yer 
thoughts  are  only  on  the  dollar. 

"  'Ye  say  we  are  not  prepared  for  the  ballot, 
ye  make  me  laugh,'  said  she;  'two-thirds  of  ye 
could  not  put  the  buttons  in  your  shirts  and 
cuffs  if  it  was  not  for  the  assistance  of  your 
mothers  r.nd  wives.  And  if  Dr.  Bevan  was  to 
dissect  you,  two-thirds  of  you  would  be  found 
with  the  dollar  mark  in  the  top  of  your  head, 
where  your  brains  ought  to  be.  And  then  ye 
have  the  nerve  to  tell  us  women  we  are  not 
prepared.  Your  thoughts  are  only  on  the 
money,  and  when  ye  get  it,  ye  are  not  satisfied 
till  ye  get  the  young  wife.  Then  ye  become  skat 
players,  golf  linkers,  with  rheumatics  and  dys- 
pepsia and  the  divil  only  knows  what  else. 

"  'Young  Dougherty  told  ye  the  truth  when 
he  said  to  ye  marrym'  is  only  a  job  for  the 
young. 

•'  "Pon  me  word,'  said  she,  'I  never  gave 
much  heed  to  the  apple  storv  between  Adam 
and  Eve ;  but  from  all  I  read  in  the  papers  and 
in  the  court  proceedings  of  yer  soulmates  and 
affinities,  and  in  the  way  ye  neglected  your  duty 
in  managing  your  government,  T  now  believe 


MRS.  J.M  KENNEDY'S  ADDRESS  27 

some  new  Eve  must  have  come  among  ye  with 
a  new  apple. 

"  'Lincoln,  said  ye  could  trust  the  people. 
Well,  we  are  the  people— the  mothers  of  the 
country,  just  as  much  as  ye  are,  and  we  want 
the  referendum  and  the  right  to  vote  on  all 
questions  pertaining  to  our  liberty,  our  lives 
and  our  property.  Then  we'll  be  as  well  en- 
trenched in  the  government  as  is  the  Supreme 
Court  on  questions  of  law,  and  is  the  Pope  on 
questions  of  religion.  We  know  what  we  want, 
and  not  what  others  tell  us  we  want.  Put  that 
in  yer  pipe  and  smoke  it,'  said  she. 

"  'Ye  made  a  grand  job,'  said  she,  'in  man- 
aging the  country.  Ye  have  built  up  a  condition 
that  has  put  all  the  women  and  children  in  har- 
ness workin'  for  you.  The  back  of  me  hand  to 
ye !  'Tis  the  women  that  know  ye. 

"  'Ye  see  now  the  greatest  thing  to  conserve 
was  the  manhood  and  the  womanhood  of  the 
country,  and  'twas  the  last  of  your  thoughts. 
But  ye  find  now  if  it  was  not  for  the  young 
men  and  the  young  women  of  the  country,  what 
good  would  all  your  possessions  be  to  ye.  When 
ye  were  chasin'  the  dollar,  the  ould  Kaiser- 
bad  cess  to  him  and  all  the  born  kings — he  was 
conservin'  the  young  manhood  and  womanhood 
of  Germany,  and  he's  got  it  today.  And  with- 
out it,  all  the  money  and  property  in  Germany 
wouldn't  be  worth  ten  cents  on  the  dollar.  And 
now  that  ye  have  learned  that  the  greatest  thing 
to  conserve  is  the  youth  of  the  country,  quit 
your  religious  bickerin';  ye  see  now  that  reli- 


28  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

gious  difference  is  lost  sight  of  when  the  flag  is 
unfurled.  Let  ye  provide  well  for  the  fatherless 
child  of  the  future;  have  no  signs  above  your 
institutions  readin'  "The  Home  of  the  Friend- 
less Child,"  etc.  Have  the  youth  learn  that 
next  to  the  father  and  mother  the  state  and  na- 
tion is  its  best  friend.  So  that  when  they  grow 
up  they  will  learn  to  love  their  country.  For 
a  country  or  a  religion  without  some  paternal- 
ism in  it,  there  is  no  love  for  it. 

"  'And  now,'  said  she,  'in  yer  last  mad  rush 
don't  neglect  the  b'ys  that's  goin'  across  the 
sea.  See  to  it  that  when  they  come  back  to  us 
—if  ever  they  do — that  no  thin'  worse  than  the 
bullets  will  be  brought  back  with  them  from  the 
slums  of  London,  Paris  and  elsewhere.  Preach- 
ing will  do  no  good,  for  boys  will  be  boys.  But 
this  solemn  duty  you  must  forcefully  perform ; 
ye  owe  it  to  the  mothers  o£  the  country  and  the 
future  generations  to  protect  the  morals  of  the 
young  men  with  all  the  powers  ye  have.  I'm 
glad,'  said  she  in  conclusion,  'if  I've  said  any- 
thing that  might  wake  ye  up. ' 

"Begorra,  McKenna,"  said  Nicholas  Kyan, 
"ye  can't  down  the  women.  And  there  it's 
for  ye." 


DENNIS  DWYER  ON  THE  NECESSITY  OF 
PREPAREDNESS,  PRACTICALLY  DEMON- 
STRATED. 

After  a  joint  meeting  of  the  six 
clubs  of  the  six  precincts  in  that 
part  of  the  Fifth  Ward  known  as 
Brighton,  John  J.  McKenna  says  that 
he  met  Dennis  Dwyer  of  the  Thirty- 
fifth  Precinct  the  next  morning.  One 
eye  was  black  and  swollen  and  one 
arm  was  in  a  sling. 

"What's  the  trouble?"  said  Mc- 
Kenna. 

"Well,"  said  Dwyer,  "the  old 
woman  says  I'm  as  big  a  fool  as  ever. 
McKenna,  that  German  druggist  man  you  have 
as  secretary  of  the  Thirty-first  Precinct  Club 
may  be  a  good  chemist ;  but  he  knows  nothin'  at 
all  about  politics.  He  it  was  that  sent  out  the 
postal  cards  for  the  meeting;  the  card  said  it 
was  for  a  'harmony'  meeting,  and  he  under- 
scored the  word  'harmony'.  Well,  after  supper 
I  washed  up,"  said  Dwyer,  "and  went  down  to 
the  meetin',  thinking  something  new  was  going 
to  take  place,  and  I  went  unprepared. 

"When  I  got  into  the  meeting  hall,  looking 
around  me  and  seeing  none  of  the  lady  members 
present  I  became  suspicious.  'I  see  no  signs  of 
harmony  here',  said  I  to  myself. 

' '  There  they  were,  gathered  from  all  parts  of 
Brighton — all  the  different  nationalities.  The 
Zimbroffs,  the  Feins,  Mintz,  the  Rubins,  the 


30  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

Cohns,  the  Berndts,  the  Reisers,  the  Hilbs,  the 
Hilks  and  Kortings.  The  McKennas,  the  Kel- 
leys,  the  Cassidys,  the  Noonans,  the  Sheehans, 
the  Founders,  the  Courvilles,  the  La  Marshas 
and  Pitons,  the  Arthurs,  the  Rankins,  the 
McKays,  Boxley,  Porter,  John  Rolston,  the  five 
Mathlesens,  the  Hellyers,,  old  man  Swanson, 
Peter  Cranzalis,  Tony  Vichollo,  Paul  Pineski, 
Antoin  Marek,  Ben  Zintak — all  officers  in  their 
respective  precincts ;  and  with  them  were  their 
friends.  The  hall  was  packed.  George  Rodg- 
ers,  a  Welshman,  was  chosen  as  the  harmony 
president.  McKenna,  I  saw  you  there,  but 
after  the  third  motion  was  made  and  seconded 
I  remembered  no  more  of  what  was  going  on. 
But  I  learned  more  of  the  necessity  of  prepar- 
edness in  that  five  minutes  than  I  did  from  read- 
ing the  newspapers  for  six  months. 

* '  McKenna,  you  made  the  mistake  of  not  hav- 
ing badges  on  us,  so  that  we  might  know  each 
other.  For  in  not  being  so  prepared,  we  licked 
as  many  of  ourselves  as  we  did  of  the  enemy. 
We're  all  for  preparedness  from  this  forward. 
And,  when  the  next  'harmony'  meeting  is  called 
for  I'll  not  be  one  of  the  ones  not  prepared." 


CONDITIONS  CREATED  BY  THE  WAR 
CLOUD  PLAYS  HAVOC  WITH  PAT 
PRICE'S  36TH  PRECINCT  CLUB. 

"Mr.  McKenna,"  said  Pat  Price,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Thirty-sixth  Precinct  Republican 
Club,  "as  there  is  no  important  election  to  be 
held  for  some  time,  we  have  concluded  to  ad- 
journ for  the  summer  months.  And  with  the 
hope  in  view  that  the  war '11  be  over  at  that 
time.  With  all  the  mixed  nationalities  we  have 
in  our  club,  it  would  be  no  job  for  a  delicate  man 
to  manage  them.  There's  not  a  subject  you  can 
speak  of,  unless  you  have  the  sergeant-at-arms 
on  guard. 

"There's  only  one  subject  that  will  hold  them, 
and  that  is  'High  Tariff.'  Mention  any  other 
subject,  Captain  Madden  and  Sergeant  Eagan 
and  all  the  police  in  the  Thirty-ninth  Street 
Police  Station  couldn't  keep  them  apart. 
There's  some  of  them  that  likes  their  beer,  and 
when  they  drink  it  they  can 't  refrain  from  sing- 
ing songs.  Divil  a  song  do  they  know  but  what 
Claybaugh  and  Clyne,  the  government  spycatch- 
ers,  has  marked  on  their  books  as  disloyal.  But 
it  is  as  hard  to  keep  them  from  singin'  when 
they're  full  of  beer,  as  it  is  to  make  a  Jew  or  a 
Frenchman  talk  with  their  hands  tied.  Every 
nationality  seems  to  have  a  favorite  song  of 
their  own.  I  can't  understand  them,  but  they 


32  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

all  get  unaisy  and  restless  if  any  song  is  sung 
but  the  Irish  songs, 

"Divil  the  Irish  song  I  can  sing— I  never  was 
a  singer,  McKenna;  but  Kelly — wherever  he 
learnt  it — sings  'God  Save  Ireland  Says  the 
Hero'— God  Save  Ireland  Say  We  All'.  Mc- 
Kenna, I  don't  know  where  Kelly  learnt  that 
song,  but  when  you  sing  it  I  notice  the  both  of 
you  have  the  same  tune — ye  must  have  learned 
it  together  somewhere. 

"Kelly  has  the  Jews  and  the  French,  and  the 
Bohemians  and  the  Germans  and  them  all  sing- 
ing this  song  until  they're  hoarse.  They  don't 
like  it,  because  I  have  my  eye  on  them  and  see 
that  most  of  them  have  their  fingers  crossed. 
But  they  can 't  sing  any  of  their  own  songs  with- 
out becoming  angry  at  each  other.  This  is  the 
reason  that  we're  trying  to  adjourn  the  meet- 
ings until  fall.  If  that  Clabaugh  and  Clyne 
should  discover  an  invention  that  could  read 
folks'  minds,  one-half  of  the  club  would  be  in- 
terned until  the  close  of  the  war. 

"We  call  the  meeting  together  when  we  meet, 
and  say,  'We  are  all  here  as  friends — for  one 
common  cause,  for  one  country  and  one  flag,' 
But,  McKenna,  I  watch  them  as  they  repeat  the 
words,  and  it's  like  singing  the  Irish  song  with 
them — two-thirds  of  them  have  their  fingers 
crossed.  This  is  why  T  am  anxious  to  git  away 
for  the  summer.  So  I've  come  down  to  say  Good 
Bye  to  you — I'm  off  on  my  vacation." 


v/',\/.v- 


DENNY  M'MANUS  OF  THE  41ST  PRECINCT 
ON  THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  HYPHEN. 

"McKenna,"  said  Nicholas  Ryan,  "I  was  an 
invited  guest  at  the  Thirty-fourth  Precinct  Club 
meeting,  where  Edward  Berndt,  the  German,  is 
President  of  the  club.  The  speaker  of  the  eve- 
ning was  little  Denny  McManus.  He  comes 
from  the  Fortieth  Precinct,  that  part  of  the 
Twenty-ninth  Ward  that  was  annexed  to  the 
Fifth  Ward.  It  was  the  home  of  Tom  Carey's 
Indians.  Denny  is  a  South  Boston  boy,  he's  got 
a  name  like  an  Irishman,  and  an  accint  like  a 
Boston  Yankee;  but  from  Denny's  swagger, 
you'd  think  his  old  man  came  over  in  the  May- 
flower and  that  it  was  their  family  that  discov- 
ered the  Plymouth  Rock. 

"He  started  out  by  saying:  'I  am  working 
hard  to  become  a  physician,  and  the  first  opera- 
tion that  I  perform  I  would  like  it  to  be  the  re- 
moval of  the  hyphen  out  of  all  of  you.  It's  as 


34  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

firmly  rooted  in  ye  as  is  the  sting  in  a  rattle- 
snake, and  there's  no  exception  in  any  of  ye. 
And  that's  what's  got  us  into  trouble  and  war, 
and  it's  many  of  ye,'  said  he,  'that  will  have  a 
lump  raised  on  your  bean  before  we  get  out  of 
it.  Ye  can't  help  it,'  said  he.  'It's  the  first 
thing  ye  learn  as  kids.  The  many  battles  your 
forefathers  had  fought  against  one  another, 
both  religiously  and  politically,  and  what  they 
did  to  one  another.  When  ye  come  to  this  coun- 
try,' says  he,  'ye'r  minds  are  on  the  easy  cash 
you  expect  to  get.  But  your  hearts  are  back  in 
the  land  from  where  ye  came.  And  ye  bring 
the  ould  sting  with  ye. 

"  'Ye'r  either  Dimocrats  or  Republicans, 
when  ye  come  here — not  from  any  principle  ye 
see  in  the  parties. — but  ye  find  out  in  whichever 
section  of  the  country  ye  locate  what  party  is 
it  that  has  the  country  men  and  religionists  in 
it  that  ye  most  hate.  Then  ye  get  in  on  the 
other  side.  And  ye  vote  the  ticket  as  the  old 
maids  play  the  horse  races ;  they  play  the  jockey 
—the  record  of  the  horse  cuts  no  ice  with  them. 
And  so  with  ye;  ye  get  ye 're  ballot  on  election 
day  and  ye  vote  names  and  not  for  the  qualifi- 
cation of  the  min.  The  ould  sting  is  in  ye  and 
ye  can't  help  it;  and  as  long  as  that  condition 
exists,  we'll  have  no  good  government,  and 


THE   "  HYPHEN " 


35 


that's  why  I'd  like  to  operate  on  ye.     For  as 
long  as  there's  a  hyphen  organization  in  this 

country,  it's  an 
indicator  that 
there  is  still  a 
sucker  left  to  be 
skinned.  The 
hyphen  is  liken- 
ed to  the  sheep 
at  Armour's 
packing  house— 
the  old  decoy 
hyphen  leads 
them  to  slaugh- 
ter and  then  he 
returns  for  a 
new  bunch.  And 
it  will  always  be 
profitable  busi- 
ness for  some 
one  as  long  as 
they  can  find  hy- 
phens. And  as 
the  hyphens 
drop  from  any  nationality  represented  in  this 
country  it's  an  indication  that  the  people 
of  that  race  are  'on'  and  the  old  decoy  with  the 
hyphen  has  lost  his  job.  Now  let  us  all  get  to- 
gether, cut  out  the  hyphen,  make  America  our 
country  and  it  will  be  a  better  day  for  us  all.' 

"McKenna,"  said  Ryan,  "the  five  spot  you 
gave  me  I  bought  them  a  keg  of  beer  with,  for 


36  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

sociability's  sake.  The  hall  was  well  filled;  no 
songs  were  permitted  except  'My  Country,  'Tis 
of  Thee,'  and  'God  Save  Ireland' — that's 
Kelly's  song.  I  noticed  a  marked  improvement 
in  their  patriotism  after  McManus  's  discourse ; 
for  at  the  conclusion  of  the  meeting  he  asked 
them  all  to  stand  up  and  hold  up  their  hand, 
and  said  he,  let  us  sing  the  closing  ode,  'My 
Country,  'Tis  of  Thee.' 

"Now,  at  some  of  the  previous  meetings,  I 
noticed  one- half  of  them,  as  they  sang  patriotic 
songs,  they  kept  their  fingers  crossed.  But  at 
this  meeting  not  more  than  three  of  the  radical 
ones  had  their  fingers  crossed.  Harmony  pre- 
vailed, and  the  meeting  was  adjourned  without 
the  aid  of  the  police. ' ' 


A  WAR  REFLECTION  37 


A  WAR  REFLECTION. 


Oh,  Power  of  Gold!  You  are  Mammon's  God! 
You  forced  mankind  to  draw  the  sword! 
You  worldly  God,  without  life  or  soul; 
i    There'll  be  no  hope  while  you're  the  goal! 
You'll  be  here  when  the  strife  is  o'er! 
The  boss  of  kinds  as  you  were  before! 

Those  who  live  will  restore  the  loss; 
••  Those  who  live  must  pay  the  cost. 
Our  dearest  friend's  lie  beneath  the  sod; 
Their  souls  have  gone  to  meet  their  God. 
You'll  be  here  when  the  strife  is  o'er, 
To  rule  the  world  as  you  did  before! 

You  are  the  Goal  for  which  Mammon  strive. 
You  are  cthe  world  God  and  Mammon's  pride! 
You'll  be  here- when  the  strife  is  o'er, 
The  bo^s  of  kings  as  you  were  before  1 

You  worldly  God!  without  life  or  soul; 

There'll  be  no  hope  while  you're ithe  Goal! 

We  may  think  and  talk — but  you'll  still  hold  sway! 

You'll  be  here  when  the  strife  is  o'er, 

To  rule  the  world  as  you  have  before! 

John  J.  McKenna. 


•  i 


OLD  "TURRENCE"  DOUGHERTY'S  ORA- 
TION BEFORE  THE  SUN  WORSHIPERS' 
CLUB  AT  THE  M'KINLEY  PARK. 

Here  is  a  speech  delivered  by  Old  Terrence 
Dougherty,  an  Old  Timer.  A  man  that  Barney 
O'Flynn  says  spent  his  younger  days  as  a  gang- 
foreman — worked  in  every  part  of  the  country 
for  contractors  of  all  kinds,  at  railroad  building, 
etc.,  and  'tis  said  of  him  he  could  bate  any  man 
that  crossed  him.  In  the  ould  days  that  was 
the  first  qualification  a  gang  foreman  had  to 
have. 


"Well,"  said  Terrence  in  beginning  his  ad- 
dress, "I'm  just  back  from  the  Benton  Harbor 
Springs  afther  enjoyin'  my  short  vacation.  I 
find  the  war  has  increased  the  price  of  every- 
thing, and  it  has  shortened  the  vacations,  so 
here  I  am  for  lack  of  funds,  among  ye  again. 

"Fifty  years  ago  this  Fourth  of  July  past  I 
attinded  the  races  here  in  this  spot.  What's 
the  McKinley  Park  now  was  the  ould  Brighton 


40  McrvENNA's  STORIES 

race  track  in  those  days,  and  it  was  a  fine  race 
track. 

"It  was  a  great  day  for  the  people  in  this 
neighborhood,  when  Representative  Shanahan 
had  the  laws  made  at  Springfield  permittin'  the 
South  Park  Commissioners  to  buy  this  land  for 
a  park. 

"The  land  belonged  to  John  Wentworth— 
'Long  John'  we  called  him  when  he  was  Mayor. 
He  was  known  all  over  the  country  for  the 
things  he  did  and  the  size  of  the  glass  he  took  his 
'sup'  from. 

"We  enjoy  this  place  with  our  arguments  as 
much  as  does  the  young  folks  with  their  many 
games  on  the  park  fields. 

"Anyhow,  ye  are  always  arguin'  politics,  and 
ye  know  all  about  it  to  hear  ye  talk,  and  Mc- 
Kenna's  given  us  all  a  workout  like  Ned  Cor- 
rigan,  the  race  man,  gave  his  string  of  colts.  1 
would  not  have  spoken  here  today  but  that  I 
knew  your  statistician,  Nicholas  Ryan,  would 
not  be  here.  I  am  hasty  and  quick-tempered; 
and  whin  I  start  to  talk,  if  I  made  a  few  mis- 
dates, and  Ryan  was  to  wave  that  Daily  News 
Almanac  under  my  nose  in  the  way  of  contra- 
diction, I  would  have  to  b'at  him.  Ryan  is  there 
wid  his  documentary  evidence  and  will  give  no 
leeway  at  all. 

' '  I  have  reasons  for  not  fallin '  out  wit  him  at 
present,  but  some  day  he'll  get  it.  And  whin 
he  does,  I  will  take  the  advice  of  an  ould  Yankee 
contractor  that  I  worked  for  as  foreman  in  New 
Haven,  Connecticut.  He  had  a  rule  for  all  us 


OLD  "TURRENCE"  41 

foremen.    'Never,'  said  he  'hit  an  Irishman  wit' 
your  fist. ' 

"But  there  are  many  good  at  givin'  advice 
that  will  not  stick  to  it  themselves.  Signs  on 
this  man,  he  forgot  himself  one  day — I  will 
never  forget  it.  I  helped  to  lift  him  into  the 
commissary  wagon  that  was  takin'  him  to  the 
hospital.  But  I'll  not  forget  it  when  I  start  in 
some  fine  day  on  Ryan. 

"Now,  for  politics,  I  say  divil  a  thing  is  new 
in  politics  or  religion. 

"In  religion  the  same  ould  divil  that  my  fa- 
ther and  your  father  and  your  grandfather 
heard  tell  of  is  still  on  the  job,  and  was  there 
as  far  back  as  the  memory  of  man  runs— and 
then  some.  An'  he  seems  to  thrive  on  abuse. 
He  is  a  handy  adjunct  for  Billy  Sunday  to  have 
around  to  help  him  increase  his  bank  account 
with.  The  ould  divil  has  been  a  greater  money 
maker  to  some  than  the  Ford  machine  has  been 
to  ould  Ford.  The  divil  is  a  certainty- — he  never 
changes  or  goes  out  of  fashion. 

"The  ould  political  machine  is  thira  that  is 
in  power,  and  they're  the  same  all  over  the 
world;  and  the  outs  are  tryin'  to  get  in  to  run 
the  ould  machine.  And  as  there  is  not  enough 
of  the  meal  tickets  to  go  the  rounds,  there's 
where  all  the  trouble  comes  from.  Billy  Sunday 
can  cry  out  'there's  room  for  all  at  the  mourn- 
ers' bench'.  But  it's  not  so  wit'  politics- 
there 's  not  jobs  or  favors  for  them  all.  The 
ould  political  machine  is,  in  some  way,  like  the 


42  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

ould  divil— you  may  change  the  driver,  but  it's 
the  same  old  machine. 

"In  the  airly  days  after  the  war  the  boss  of 
the  Republican  machine  in  the  North  had  a  soft 
job.  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  put  one  of  the  ould 
boys  in  blue  at  the  polling  place,  have  him  cry 
out  at  the  top  of  his  voice— like  a  praying  Der- 
vish 'here  comes  the  copperhead.'  That's  what 
they  called  the  dimocrats  in  those  days.  The 
divil  a  dimocrat  got  an  important  office  for 
years.  That  was  soft  go  in'  for  the  Eepublican 
machine  boss. 

' '  And  whin  I  went  south  in  the  winter,  as  gang 
boss  on  the  levee,  I  found  the  same  conditions 
there  at  Charleston,  Mimphis,  Savannah  and 
New  Orl'ans.  There  was  the  ould  boy  in  gray 
at  the  polling  place — the  same  trick — he  set  up 
a  murderin'  cry,  givin'  out  the  ould  rebel  yell, 
'here  comes  the  Yankee',  says  he.  Divil  a  Re- 
publican ever  come  within  forty  rods  of  a  poll- 
ing place.  There  it's  for  ye  now  in  a  nut  shell. 

The  great  adjunct  to  the  ould  bosses  of  both 
parties  in  the  early  days  was  the  party  news- 
paper. Anything  a  Democrat  done  was  well 
spoken  of  by  his  party  paper,  and  the  same  was 
true  of  the  Republican  party  paper.  Anything 
they  did  to  one  another  or  to  the  public,  was 
shown  to  be  all  for  the  best,  but  as  the  old 
sayin'  goes,  'Things  have  changed  since  Han- 
nah died.'  The  press  in  the  big  cities  has  be- 
come bigger  than  the  party.  With  them,  the  for- 
mer single  meal  ticket  don't  go  any  more.  They 
either  run  the  machine  themselves,  or,  as  Bar- 


OLD  "TURRENCE"  43 

ney  O'Flynn  says,  the  Chauffeurs  Manual  tells 
him  that  the  little  Ford  machine  will  not  run 
with  water  in  the  Carburetor,  and  so  with  the 
ould  political  machine  tryin'  to  run  it  without 
the  aid  of  the  press  is  like  Barney's  Ford  with 
water  in  the  carburetor.  It's  a  hard  job. 

"Government  and  society  politics  are  just 
run  on  the  same  plan.  I  had  to  demonstrate  this 
to  Barney  0  'Flynn  to  convince  him.  So,  said  I 
to  Barney,  'keep  your  eye  open  and  ye '11  see 
for  yourself.' 

"We  belonged  to  a  society  that  was  bavin' 
doin's  goin'  on;  mimbers  from  all  over  comin' 
to  visit  our  city,  and  we  had  officers  to  elect  at 
the  time.  The  officers  we  had  were  good  officers, 
but  I  had  to  show  Barney  the  game.  We  had 
Swedes,  Germans  and  Irish  as  members,  and 
some  others. 

"Well,  we  whispered  to  the  Swedes,  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  Irish  that  the  opposite  candidates 
said,  that  now  that  we  were  havin'  visitors,  it 
would  not  look  good  to  have  Swedes,  Germans 
and  Irish  elected  to  be  in  the  chair  when  the 
visitors  come. 

"Well,  sir,  the  Swedes,  the  Germans  and  the 
Irish  began  whisperin'  to  each  other  that  the 
officers  were  gettin'  very  high  toned.  Said  the 
Swedes,  'we're  as  good  as  they  are.'  'Yes,  and 
better,'  said  the  Irish.  'Sure  thing,  says  the 
Germans.  Say  nothin',  says  I  to  them,  but  keep 
your  eyes  open.  Our  ticket  was  then  made  up 
of  all  Swedes,  Irish  and  German. 

"Well,  sir,  the  result  was,  divil  a  man  was 


44  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

elected  but  a  Swede,  a  German,  and  an  Irishman, 
and  I  says,  'Now,  Barney,  are  you  convinced?' 

"It's  sayin'  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time 
that  carries  public  opinion.  It's  not  drinkin' 
and  talkin'  loud  in  the  bar  room  that  wins  the 
election. 

"For  when  ould  Malone  of  New  York  said 
'God  bless  Wilson  for  keepin'  us  out  of  war,' 
the  job  was  done,  the  election  was  won  then  and 
there.  And  as  Mrs.  Jim  Kennedy  says  of  ould 
Hughes,  'the  foolish  man  to  quit  his  good  life 
job  on  the  bench  to  go  up  against  Wilson  after 
that  was  said,'  was  like,  said  she,  'the  ould  man 
that  married  the  young  wife — more  to  be  pitied 
than  laughed  at.' 

"I  think  I  have  said  enough,  and  I  am  glad 
that  Ryan  has  not  put  in  his  appearance.  And 
if  ye  keep  him  away  next  Thursday,  I  will  con- 
tinue the  subject." 


CONTINUANCE  OF  OLD  DOUGHERTY'S 
ORATION. 

"Well,  I  see  you  kept  your  word;  and  now  I 
will  continue  my  political  discussion.  Nicholas 
Ryan,  your  statistician,  will  not  be  here.  Bar- 
ney 0  'Flynn  informs  me  that  he  sent  him  a  de- 
coy postal  card  informin'  him  that  one  of  his 
brother  members  of  the  Ancient  Order  of  Unit- 
ed Workmen  wanted  to  see  him  immediately  at 
the  hospital — it  makes  me  laugh ;  I  have  known 
Ryan  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  that 's  the 
nearest  he  ever  came  to  work,  was  when  he 
joined  a  society  that  had  a  workin'  name  to  it. 
Don't  mention  to  him  that  I  said  this,  but  'tis 
true. 

' ;  Well,  I  showed  you  in  my  last  discourse  how 
the  ould  Dimocratic  and  Republican  machine 
was  kept  in  runnin'  order  from  the  early  60 's 
to  '75  or  thereabouts. 

"Our  Government  is  built  on  the  plan  that  we 
agree  to  abide  by  whatever  a  majority  of  our 
Congress  does  whin  it's  signed  by  the  President 
—or  what  two-thirds  of  thim  do  if  not  signed 
by  the  President.  The  Supreme  Court  at  times 


46  McKENNA's  STORIES 

may  say  such  and  such  is  not  constitutional. 
But  until  such  time,  it 's  the  law.  Now,  whin  ye 
don't  agree  on  that,  it's  then  back  and  bring  on 
Mr.  Force,  the  original  governor  of  us  all. 
There's  your  answer. 

"Well^  in  the  airly  60 's  there  was  some  dis- 
pute as  to  State  Rights,  and  for  the  time  bein' 
they  put  the  Constitution  in  the  safe  and 
brought  out  'Mr.  Force.'  He  did  the  job  as  ye 
all  know,  but  it  took  time,  min,  and  money. 

"Well,  after  the  ould  regime  died  out,  the 
risin'  gineration  took  hould  of  the  machines  of 
both  parties ;  they  had  very  little  to  come  in  on, 
except  high  tariff  and  tariff  for  revenue  only, 
and  free  trade  for  the  ould  Dimocratic  machine 
of  the  South.  Wit'  this  and  the  Committee  on 
Credentials,  they  continued  the  running  of  the 
ould  political  machines.  The  high  tariff  and 
the  Committee  on  Credentials  did  many  a  good 
turn  for  the  ould  Republican  machine  of  the 
North.  Free  Trade  and  the  Committee  on  Cre- 
dentials did  the  same  for  the  Dimocratic  ma- 
ciiine  of  the  South. 

•'The  ould  Dimocratic  machine  of  the  North 
was  run  on  the  text  they  read  from  some  reli- 
gious book,  for  their  battle  cry  was  *  First  gel 
ye  the  meal  tickets  and  the  job  and  all  things 
else  will  follow. '  Tammany  won  many  a  battle 
on  that  text. 

"Ould  Samuel  J.  Tilden  in  '76  was  the  first 
to  come  near  puncturin'  the  Republican  machine 


DOUGHERTY  CONTINUES  47 

tire;  but  the  investigatin '  committee  appointed 
by  the  United  States  Congress  eight  to  seven 
lost  the  spark  plug  somewhere  in  their  investi- 
gating of  the  returns  from  New  Orl'ans.  This 
left  the  ould  Dimocratic  machine  and  Samuel 
Tilden  stuck  up  on  one  of  the  hills  on  the  Hud- 
son— an'  there  ye  are! 

"It  was  smooth  goin'  again  for  a  long  time 
for  the  Republican  machine;  thin  come  along 
ould  Grover  Cleveland— he  surely  did  puncture 
the  ould  Republican  machine  tire.  Some  one 
set  up  a  loud  cry  about  Grover  at  the  time,  but 
Barney  O'Flynn  says  some  one  offset  it  with  the 
cry  Met  all  of  us  kind  o'  fellows  stick  together,' 
and  the  result  was  Cleveland  won  in  a  walk. 

"The  ould  Republican  machine  controlled 
both  houses  of  Congress  during  Cleveland's  first 
term,  and  you'd  scarcely  notice  much  in  the 
change,  and  many  the  one  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  Dimocrats  were  not  one-half  as  bad 
as  depicted.  It  was  a  bad  omen  for  the  Repub- 
lican machine;  many  said  at  the  time  if  you 
covered  Cleveland's  chair,  you  couldn't  tell 
whether  it  was  a  Dimocrat  or  a  Republican  who 
was  in  the  White  House.  And  it  made  it  hard 
goin'  for  the  ould  Republican  machine.  " 

"But  a  few  of  the  ould  boys  in  blue  that  was 
left,  got  together,  brought  out  the  ould  flag 
again,  and  with  Senator  Foraker  of  Ohio,  they 
put  up  one  of  the  'Quid  Guard',  Benjamin  Har- 
rison, of  Indiana,  back  in  the  chair.  And  again 


48  MC!CENNA'S  STORIES 

the  ould  Republican  machine  jogged  away  for 
a  time. 

"But  ould  Cleveland  again  caused  a  blow  out 
with  his  'Tariff  for  revenue  only'  cry.  Well, 
we  got  it,  and  all  that  was  in  the  satchel  with  it. 
Thin  Coxie's  army  distributed  broken  glass  all 
along  the  road  for  the  Dimocratic  machine — an' 
there  you  are. 

"An'  thin  come  ould  Mark  Hanna  with  the 
long  green,  and  McKinley  wit'  the  cry  of  the 
full  dinner  pail,  and  submarine  Bryan  and  the 
ould  Dimocratic  machine.  Bryan  wit'  his  'six- 
teen to  one'  in  silver  got  what  every  one  else 
gets  when  they  go  up  against  the  power  of  gold. 
They  finish  like  Bryan  and  the  ould  Dimocratic 
machine  did  thin — stuck  in  the  road  with  a  car 
overloaded  with  crosses  of  thorns. 

"Again  the  ould  Republican  machine  goes 
smoothly  until  Teddy  took  big  Bill  Taft  into  the 
machine  with  him;  the  load  was  too  heavy— 
Teddy  tried  to  have  Taft  1  'ave  the  machine,  but 
he  refused.  Thin  Teddy  hooked  on  the  ould 
Bull  Moose  to  the  Republican  machine,  an'  be- 
tween their  draggin'  and  scrapin'  the  result  was 
that  Wilson  run  the  ould  Dimocratic  machine 
into  the  White  House. 

"Thin  ould  Malone  of  New  York,  as  Mrs. 
Jim  Kennedy  says,  when  he  said  'God  bless  Wil  • 
son  for  keepin'  us  out  of  war'  that  word  filled 
the  ould  Republican  machine  carbureter  full  of 
tears,  and  it  is  now  in  the  garage  bein'  greased 
up,  waiting  for  the  new  catchword  that  will  get 


DOUGHERTY  CONTINUES  49 

the  tide  of  public  opinon  to  carry  it  again  to  the 
White  House. 

"The  old  Committee  on  Credentials  at  the 
last  .Republican  Convention  saved  Teddy  from 
himself.  Thanks  to  his  friends,  The  Enemy. 
What  a  ducking  the  carbureter  would  have  got 
if  Teddy  had  met  the  fate  of  Hughes. 

"The  ould  Dimocratic  machine  of  the  South 
has  soft  go  in' — they  may  fight  in  the  primary 
election — but  there  the  machine  boss  has  one 
sayin'  that  never  fails,  and  that  is  'No  gintle- 
man  ever  votes  the  Eepublican  ticket.'  And  the 
ould  boss  knows  well  that  no  Southerner  will 
admit  that  he's  not  a  gintleman.  So,  no  matter 
what  the  ould  Committee  on  Credentials  does  to 
him,  he  rll  never  bolt  over  to  the  Eepublican  side. 

"Politics  is  like  any  other  business — ye  can't 
run  it  sittin'  on  the  wood  pile.  There  are  some 
that  we  know  that  started  in  the  business  on 
corned  beef  and  cabbage,  and  have  quit  on  cham- 
pagne and  birds,  but  they  are  few  and  far  be- 
tween. But  there  are  many  that  we  know  that 
have  started  in  on  wine  and  birds,  that  have 
finished  on  corned  beef  and  cabbage— an'  there 
ye  are. 

"Now,  if  ye  don't  know  the  trick,  as  ould 
Keller,  the  Macrician,  says,  'take  it  home  and  do 
it  over  several  times  till  you  are  familiar  with 
it,  and  maybe  after  tin  or  twinty  years  ye  may 
be  able  to  do  it  yourself. 

"Well,  here's  the  finish  of  things  as  they 
stand  today:  Wilson  and  the  Kaiser— like  the 


50  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

kids  in  the  game  of  tag — the  Kaiser  touched 
Wilson  and  said  to  him,  'you're  it.'  Now  it's 
up  to  Wilson  to  tag  him  back.  An'  what  the 
next  catch  word  will  be  to  win  the  next  election 
for  the  machines'  bosses  no  one  can  tell,  as  it 
ain't  coined  yet.  Now  that  I  see  Kyan  comin' 
in  the  distance,  I  will  say  good  afternoon  to  ye, 
and  finish  next  week." 


CONCLUSION    OF    OLD    DOUGHERTY'S 
DISCOURSE. 

"Well  I,m  here  again  and  will  finish  my  dis- 
course. But  before  I  start,  let  me  tell  you  this 
story:  Joe  Sheehan  just  told  it  to  me — he  is 
just  back  from  the  Willow  Springs.  Joe's  as 
big  a  trickster  as  ever  put  two  feet  in  shoe 
leather.  He  said,  'You  can  now  talk  your  head 
off,  Dougherty,  for  Ryan,  the  Statistician,  will 
not  be  here  to  confront  you.  For  Barney 
O'Flynn  and  myself  shanghaied  him  in 
Barney's  little  Ford  out  to  the  Willow  Springs, 
where  he  is  now  stranded  on  the  roadside.' 

"Barney  is  lyin'  under  a  shady  tree,  readin' 
from  the  little  red  book  'what  to  look  for  when 
the  car  won't  start.'  Barney  is  pretindin'  he's 
sick  from  the  sun  and  h'at,  and  Ryan's  doin' 
all  the  work  tryin'  to  get  the  car  started.  Bar- 
ney says  he'll  hold  him  there  all  day,  and  if 
all  else  fails  him  he  will  have  Ryan  crank  the 
car  wit'  the  spark  lever  so  advanced  that  it  will 
cause  a  kick  back  and  maim  Ryan,  to  prevent 
his  return.' 

"  'What  will  I  look  for,'  says  Ryan  again 


52  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

when  the  car  don't  start.'  'Here  it  is,'  says 
Barney,  readin '  aloud  from  the  Bed  book,  as  he 
sits  in  a  shady  spot  under  the  big  tree:  'First 
see  if  there's  gasoline  in  the  tank.  Is  the  cock 
at  the  tank  shut  off!  Is  there  spark  inside  the 
cylinder?  Is  the  throttle  closed?  Is  the  gas 
pipe  clogged  ?  Is  the  carbureter  valve  clogged  ? 
Have  ye  clogged  air  inlet  ?  Have  ye  leaky  mani- 
fold inlet  pipe,  Clogged  spray ?  Dirty  valves  ? 
Heavy  float?  Cold  engine?  Water  in  the  gas- 
oline system,  etc.?  Ye 're  now  learning  some- 
thing about  the  ould  auto  machine  as  well  as  the 
ould  political  machine.'  'Well,'  says  Ryan, 
'it's  not  water  that's  in  the  gasoline  system. 
Sheehan  may  have  spilled  some  cold  beer  in  the 
carbureter,  but  we've  seen  no  water  since  we 
left  the  Brighton.' 

"  'An'  you,  Barney,'  says  By  an,  'have  too 
much  cold  beer  in  your  carbureter,  an'  that's 
what  ails  ye  more  than  the  h'at  of  the  day.' 

"  'Well,  I  promised  to  confront  Dougherty 
this  afternoon;  I  see  my  plans  have  failed  me,' 
says  Byan. 

"  Barney,'  says  Byan,  'from  the  way  you 
read  from  the  little  Bed  book  about  the  ailments 
of  the  auto,  it  sounds  like  an  extract  from  the 
pamphlet  of  Lydia  Pinkham  on  Pink  Pills.  The 
ould  machine  seems  to  have  as 'many  ailments 
as  Lydia  enumerated  in  her  pamphlet  in  de- 
pictin'  the  troubles  of  the  human  body.' 

"As  bad  as  the  ould  political  machine  is,  it 
has  not  all  of  thim  ailments  to  contind  with. 
Now,  if  the  ould  political  machine  hesitates,  you 


DOUGHERTY  STILL,  AT  IT  53 

might  ask,  'are  the  ould  party  papers  barkin' 
loud  enough  in  their  praises  of  the  officials;  or 
are  the  m'al  tickets  and  the  favors  bein'  dis- 
tributed ginerously;  or  are  the  committeemen 
workin'  in  unison  and  distributin'  the  m'al  tick- 
ets where  they  will  do  the  most  good,  etc.  But 
the  ould  political  machine  has  not  got  one-twen- 
tieth of  the  ailments  that  your  ould  auto- 
machine  has  if  what  you  read  from  the  little 
Red  book  is  true. 

"Anny  how  ye  will  have  a  great  government 
when  ye  advance  to  the  idea  of  Mrs.  James  Ken- 
nedy, the  suffragette.  Whin  ye  have  the  right 
of  referendum  on  all  questions  pertaining  to 
yer  life,  liberty  and  property.  But  if  things 
were  to  keep  on  as  before  the  war,  it  would  take 
many  a  day  to  accomplish  that.  Yer  big  inter- 
ests had  drummers  in  every  seaport  town  of  the 
worrld,  inducin'  greenhorns  to  come,  an'  all  the 
qualifications  necessary  was  like  the  rule  of  the 
ould  Yankee  contractor  that  I  was  boss  for  in 
New  Haven,  Connecticut.  His  rule  was  for  la- 
borin'  min;  never  hire  one  that's  either  weak  or 
wise.  That's  the  principle  on  which  y'er  immi- 
gration drummers  worked — get  them  that's 
neither  weak  nor  wise.  For  it's  the  work  that's 
in  thim  that  we  want  thim  for,  an'  there  you 
are. 

"Ye  have  a  great  plan  of  government;  it  has 
been — and  from  all  appearance  it  will  continue 
for  a  long  time  to  come— that  either  the  ould 
Dimocrat  or  Republican  machine  will  run  it  for 
ye.  When  they  have  everything  prepared  and 


54  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

the  bill  of  fare  selected,  they  send  out  their  in- 
vitations for  the  great  banquet.  Every  one  is 
invited  to  participate.  But  divil  a  thing  ye 
have  to  say  with  what's  go  in'  to  be  served.  Ye 
can  rail  and  find  fault  an'  if  ye  don't  like  the 
Dimocratic  feed,  ye  can  go  over  to  the  Repub- 
lican feed.  But  it's  like  the  hotels  in  Pine 
Bluff,  Arkansaw,  where  there  are  but  two ;  whin 
ye  go  to  one,  ye  wish  ye  had  gone  to  the  other— 
an'  there  it  is  for  ye  in  a  nutshell. 

"About  two  hundred  artistic  machine  experts 
plan  out  what  the  one  hundred  million  of  ye 
need  for  their  best  interests,  an'  yer  best  wel- 
fare; an'  from  the  looks  of  things  we  will  be 
layin'  down  below  the  clover  with  the  top  well 
smoothed  over  before  any  different  plan  will 
be  brought  into  play. 

' '  In  the  South  there 's  a  little  of  the  ould  sting 
of  '61  left.  Here  is  a  sample  of  it :  When  I  was 
boss  at  Biloxi,  Mississippi,  I  met  an  ould  man 
named  Sullivan  that  was  gardener  for  Jeff 
Davis  at  the  time  of  the  war.  One  day  I  said, 
'Sullivan,  how  are  ye?'  'All  right,  Dougherty,' 
said  he,  'but  for  a  little  rheumatism  in  the  right 
leg ;  a  Yankee  shot  me  in  the  leg  there, '  pointin ' 
out  to  the  Mississippi  Sound  ferninst  the  town 
of  Biloxi. 

"  'Well,'  said  I,  'Sullivan,  maybe  it  was  an 
Irishman  that  shot  you.'  'Oh,'  he  says,  'we 
called  them  all  Yankees  in  those  days.' 

"Well,  ould  Sullivan  married  a  Mississippi 
girl  and  they  have  the  house  full  of  Sullivans, 
an'  ivery  one  of  thim  has  learned  that  a  Yankee 


DOUGHERTY  STILL  AT  IT  55 

shot  the  father  in  the  leg,  an  from  there  comes 
the  ould  sting.  An',  as  ould  Sullivan  said,  all 
the  ould  ladies  in  the  South,  when  the  kids  were 
small  an'  wouldn't  go  to  sleep  when  tould,  the 
ould  ladies  would  say,  'here  comes  the  Yankees.' 
So  ye  see  it  takes  a  long  time  for  the  ould  sting 
to  die  out.  In  the  South  they  raised  their  pop- 
ulation— it  was  slow  comin'.  But  in  the  North 
we  imported  most  of  our  population.  In  the 
South  the  young  generation  of  today  talk  of  the 
war  of  '61  as  if  it  was  yesterday.  Now,  in  the 
North,  for  instance  in  twinty  of  the  wards  of 
Chicago,  if  ye  were  to  speak  of  the  war  of  '61, 
it  would  be  paid  as  little  heed  to  as  if  you  were 
talkin'  of  the  battle  of  Clontarf,  where  Bryen 
Boiroimhe  drove  the  Danes  from  Ireland— and 
there  it  is  for  ye. 

"Our  country  may  be  compared  with  Lake 
Michigan,  it's  the  greatest  body  of  drinkin'  wa- 
ter in  the  worrld,  but  if  ye  turned  all  of  the  sew- 
erage of  Chicago  into  it,  it  would  soon  be  de- 
stroyed. So  with  our  Government,  it  is  the 
greatest  plan  of  government  ever  left  to  man; 
but  if  you  fill  the  country  with  all  kinds  of  isms 
and  ignorance,  you  soon  destroy  your  plan  of 
governmint. 

"This  war  was  not  born  from  an  American 
sentiment,  but  from  a  spirit  of  hatred,  that  the 
races  of  the  ould  worrld  have  had  against  one 
another  generated  and  kept  alive  from  one  gen- 
eration to  the  other,  from  stories  they  learned 


56  McKENNA's  STORIES 

from  their  fathers  and  grandfathers.     And  it 
came  with  too  many  of  ye  to  this  country. 

"I  hope  it  will  be  the  good  mothers  of  the 
country  that  will  save  us  from  greed.  Intelli- 
gence, knowledge,  and  love  of  country  is  not  cul- 
tivated in  a  fortnight.  When  our  boys  are  go- 
ing to  fight,  let  them  know  that  the  flag  is  still 
in  the  care  of  their  fathers  and  mothers,  and 
that  their  places  are  not  being  supplanted  with 
ignorance  for  the  profit  of  the  few.  And  that 
wherever  Old  Glory  is  seen  floating  that  it  still 
represents  a  country,  run  on  the  sentiments  of 
Washington,  Jefferson,  and  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Now,  let  ye  put 
that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it." 


THE  WAR  IS  A  BAD  OMEN  FOR  PAT  ENG- 
LISH AND  HIS  AFFILIATED  CLUB. 

"McKenna,"  said  Pat  English,  "I  called 
down  to  see  you  on  the  same  mission. that  Pat 
Price  came  last  week,  namely  the  advisability 
of  the  adjourning  of  the  club  meetings  for  the 
summer  months.  Pat  Price  told  you  the  trouble 
he  had  to  manage  his  club,  on  account  of  the 
new  condition  created  by  the  war.  Well,  sir, 
if  he  had  the  trouble  with  his  one  precinct  club, 
you  can  guess  what  mine  is  when  they  call  one 
of  them  affiliated  club  meetings — whatever  that 
means.  No  man  but  a  college  educated  man  like 
Mike  Dwyer  could  think  of  a  word  like  that. 

''At  our  last  week's  meeting  of  the  affiliated 
clubs,  we  had  all  the  war  factions  of  Europe, 
made  up  of  min  that  represent  all  races  and  re- 
ligions of  Europe ;  min  that  have  been  fighting 
one  another  for  the  past  thousand  years,  as 
races  and  religionists.  It's  no  job  for  a  sick 
man  to  manage  thim.  One  slip  of  a  word,  and 
they're  at  it. 

"For  instance,  John  Pouillot,  the  French- 
man, said  to  Ed  Berndt,  the  German,  that 
Teddy  was  goin'  over  to  conquer  Germany  and 
be  elected  the  Kaiser  himself.  'Well,'  said 
Berndt,  'there's  a  saying  in  my  country, 
"There's  many  a  man  that  got  a  clean  shave 
that  never  got  to  be  Pope."  Johnny  Murphy 
had  to  separate  thim. 

"We  had  an  old  lady  suffragette  address  the 
meetin'.  She  said:  'Min,  why,  but  you  assimi- 
late the  American  idea  and  the  American  spirit.' 


58  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

Sure  them  laddy-bucks  know  nothing  of  the 
American  idea;  the  only  thing  they  know  is 
that  they  were  skinned  by  every  one  they  come 
in  contact  with  the  first  five  or  six  years  they 
were  in  the  country. 

"Johnny  Murphy  says  that  when  they  get  out 
of  the  skin  class  and  become  'skinners'  them- 
selves, they'll  be  as  patriotic  as  the  balance 
of  ye. 

' '  The  good  lady  also  spoke  on  the  timperance 
question.  Henry  Korting,  the  German,  said,  in- 
terruptin'  her:  'Ye  can  talk  as  much  as  you 
may,  but  there  is  more  friendship  in  a  pint  of 
Cassidy's  or  Eolston's  or  Sheehan's  or  Hell- 
yer's  whisky  than  there  is  in  a  barrel  of  but- 
termilk. If  the  question  was  to  be  decided  on 
the  noise,  Korting  won  the  debate. 

"We  always  had  a  social  keg  o'  beer  at  our 
meetin's  before  the  war  cloud  came,  but  it's 
hard  enough  now  to  keep  them  apart  on  oatmeal 
water. 

"I  see  so  many  of  thim,  McKenna,  with  their 
fingers  crossed  when  we  sing  our  patriotic  clos- 
ing ode,  that  I  am  like  Pat  Price,  afraid  that 
Clabaugh  and  Clyne  will  come  in  upon  thim 
with  their  mind-reading  apparatus  and  interne 
thim  until  the  war  is  over.  So  you  see  why  I 
am  anxious  to  get  away  for  the  summer.  As 
Kelly  says,  'Whin  an  Irishman  learns  enough 
to  get  away  from  the  shovel,  anybody  that  gets 
anything  out  of  him  without  value  received,  is 
welcome  to  it.'  So  I'm  off  for  my  vacation. 
Good  bye,  McKenna." 


THE  DIPLOMACY  OF  TOM  SHEEHAN,  THE 
BUFFET  KEEPER  OF  ARCHER  ROAD. 

"McKenna,"  said  Nicholas  Ryan,  "you 
missed  the  time  of  your  life  that  you  were  not 
at  our  last  week's  affiliated  clubs'  meeting  at 
Baker's  Hall.  We  had  Tommy  Sheehan,  the 
saloonkeeper,  to  act  as  chairman.  Tommy  is 
very  diplomatic.  He  says  in  order  to  insure 
harmony  and  good  will,  we'll  dispose  of  the 
reading  of  the  minutes  of  the  last  meeting. 
'And  now  for  new  business,'  said  he.  'What 
is  your  pleasure?' 

"Tommy  told  me  privately,  at  first  thought 
he  was  going  to  send  for  Sergeant  Egan  and 
Captain  Madden  of  the  Brighton  station  to  fur- 
nish protection.  But  when  he  saw  come  in  as 
visitors  Patrick  English,  Hennessy,  Gear, 
Johnny  Murphy  and  Norton,  from  '  The  Pocket ' 
precincts,  and  with  them  Rudolph  Klank,  the 
wrestler,  and  then  our  own  talent— looking 
them  over,  said  he,  'This  will  be  an  orderly 
meeting,  for  any  one  now  wantin'  to  fight  can 


60  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

get  all  he  wants  of  it  just  for  the  asking.'  And 
that's  the  best  guarantee  against  fighting. 

"Mike  Dwyer  set  the  ball  to  rolling  by  say- 
ing, 'We  are  now  at  war  for  the  freedom  of  the 
seas  and  for  the  freedom  of  small  nations ;  and 
I  have  a  resolution  prepared  so  as  to  guard 
against  mishaps.  It's  asking  for  the  freedom 
of  Ireland  first.' 

"The  motion,  to  our  surprise,  was  seconded 
by  Dan  Pool,  an  old  salt  sailor,  an  Englishman. 
He  said  he  sailed  around  the  world  eleven 
times.  He's  been  in  every  port  and  principal 
city  in  the  world,  from  Liverpool  to  Bombay; 
and  it  gave  him  the  pleasure  of  his  life  to  have 
the  privilege  of  seconding  the  motion.  'For,' 
said  he,  'he  worked  with  the  Irish  sailor,  and 
that  the  English  sailor  and  the  English  nawie 
and  the  Irish  sailor  and  the  Irish  nawie  were 
the  two  greatest  friends,'  from  his  experience, 
that's  in  all  His  Majesty's  possessions. 

"Said  he,  'Their  likes  and  dislikes  are  alike. 
They  like  the  girls  and  they  like  their  drink, 
and  they  dislike  a  tightwad,  and  they  believe  in 
the  same  principle  that  money  was  made  to 
keep  circulating.'  And  said  he,  'As  John  L. 
Sullivan  says,  they're  the  only  men  of  two  na- 
tions that  will  take  off  their  shirts  and  make  a 
square  stand-up  fight  with  the  weapons  that  na- 
ture gave  them.  And  for  union  principle,'  said 
he,  'either  one  of  them  will  starve  to  death, 
rather  than  to  violate  its  command.  And  as 
far  as  I've  ever  heard,  where  the  English  and 
the  Irish  don't  agree  and  get  along  is  in  the 


TOM  SHEEHAN  's  DIPLOMACY  61 

House  of  Parliament,'  so  said  he,  'I  hope  the 
motion  will  prevail.' 

"You  could  hear  the  noise  of  the  answer  'yea' 
in  the  neighborhood  for  two  days  after  the  mo- 
tion was  put. 

"Herman  Klank  near  caused  a  commotion 
when  he  stood  up  to  favor  the  motion.  He  said 
he  wished  that  when  Ireland  was  getting  her 
freedom,  that  the  English  government  would  be 
in  the  same  predicament  that  Russia  was  in 
when  they  had  to  give  up  Poland. 

"Now,  Tommy  Sheehan  was  very  diplomatic; 
he  saw  what  was  coming  immediately,  and  said 
he,  'Fellows,  I  have  a  friendly  tip  for  ye.  One 
of  the  government  officers  with  Sergeant  Eagan 
and  Captain  Madden,  and  a  few  bulls  are  at  the 
front  door  as  you  go  out.  Some  one  has  in- 
formed them  that  some  of  the  persons  present 
have  concealed  weapons  with  them.' 

"  'Now,'  says  he,  'let  me  tell  you  something; 
be  quiet  and  quick;  slip  down  the  back  way 
and  out  through  my  place.'  It  worked  like  a 
charm  and  saved  a  battle  royal.  The  hall  was 
emptied  in  two  minutes  without  a  cross  word 
and  without  the  aid  of  the  police." 


62  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

JERRY  DUGGAN,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  40TH 
PRECINCT  REPUBLICAN  CLUB  IN  CON- 
FAB WITH  M'KENNA. 

"McKenna,"  said  Jerry  Duggan,  president 
of  the  Fortieth  Precinct  Republican  Club, 
"there's  always  more  or  less  discord  in  our 
meetings.  It's  a  new  precinct,  made  up  of  for- 
eigners from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Savin'  a 
few  Irish  there,  you  might  say  they're  all  for- 
eigners." 

' '  Duggan, ' '  says  Jim  Doyle,  ' '  sure  them  that 
you  call  foreigners  are  no  more  foreigners  than 
the  Irish.  Sure,  they  have  their  papers  as  well 
as  you  have." 

"Well,  sir,"  says  I,  "it's  not  papers  that 
change  you  from  bein'  a  foreigner.  You  might 
have  papers  the  size  of  a  bale  of  hay  and  still  be 
a  foreigner.  Anny  man  with  half  an  eye  in  his 
head,  if  he  looks  around  him,  can  see  that,  in 
anny  part  of  the  country  you  turn  into,  today. 
As  Bobby  Burns  says,  'You  can  place  your 
minted  mark  on  copper,  brass  and  a'  that,  but 
the  lie  is  gross,  the  cheat  is  plain,  it  will  no  pass 
for  a'  that,'  An'  I  am  tellin'  you  it's  just  the 
same  with  the  papers.  They're  only  the  certi- 
ficate ;  '  the  man 's  the  gold  for  a '  that ',  and  pa- 
pers don't  change  him  if  his  heart  is  not  right. 
And  this  does  not  apply  to  any  particular  na- 
tionality, but  we  see  it  in  them  all." 

"Begorra,"  says  Duggan,  "it's  wastin'  labor 
and  paper,  McKenna,  to  be  furnishin'  certifi- 
cates for  the  Irish.  For  as  sure  as  I'm  tellin' 


DUGGAN  SAYIN'  THINGS  63 

ye,  there's  scarcely  an  ould  Irish  mother  in  Ire- 
land but  has  one  or  more  sons  or  daughters  in 
America,  livin'  or  dead;  and  where  the  missin' 
ones  are,  there's  where  the  heart  and  love  is. 
Not  only  of  the  mother,  but  the  whole  family. 
And  that's  why  I  say  it's  wastin'  time  and  pa- 
per to  be  furnishin'  certificates  to  the  Irish. 
They're  none  of  them  foreigners  when  they 
come  here,  for  their  hearts  and  love  were  in 
America  long  before  they  thought  of  sailin'  for 
America.  Now  you  can  see  that  in  every  place 
you  go  to  today;  it's  not  the  paper  that  changes 
you  from  bein'  a  foreigner — all  the  papers  in 
the  world  wouldn't  do  the  job.  It'  something 
that's  in  you  and  not  the  papers.  It's  not  the 
grassy  field  or  the  running  brook,  because 
they're  everywhere.  It's  the  remembrance  of 
the  livin'  sintiments  of  George  Washington 
that's  in  our  hearts  that  changes  us  from  bein' 
1  f urreigners '.  For,  with  those  sintiments  dead, 
all  countries  would  look  alike  to  us.  And  I  hope 
we'll  never  live  to  see  that  day. 

"And  it's  not  the  Constitution,  for  there  are 
min  that  could  ate  the  Constitution.  But  it's 
that  unwritten  law,  the  sentimints  of  Washing- 
ton, that  has  so  firmly  rooted  itself  in  our  sys- 
tem that  it  cannot  be  changed  or  destroyed 
without  takin'  with  it  the  life  of  the  Nation. 
This  is  the  sintiment — and  not  paper  certificates 
—that  changes  us  from  bein' '  f  urreigners '. 

"At  our  last  meetin'  we  had  the  divil's  time; 
they  induced  Mike  Dwyer,  the  tay  man,  to  act  as 
chairman  of  the  meeting'.  Mike  speaks  sivin 


64 

different  languages  and  uses  them  all  to  advan- 
tage in  sellin'  tay  to  the  women  folks  of  the 
ward.  He  started  up  the  meetin'  by  sayin'  that 
from  writings  and  from  evidence  we  find  in  the 
excavations  in  Egypt,  that  as  far  back  as  nine 
thousand  years  ago,  somewhere  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Nile,  min  assembled  as  we  are  tonight  to 
better  their'  condition. 

"Ryan  says  overreading  is  like  overeating 
if  you  are  consuming  stuff  you  cannot  di- 
gest. 

"At  Dwyer's  remarks  the  fun  commenced. 
Little  Nicholas  Ryan  jumped  to  his  feet,  sayin', 
'I  challenge  your  assertion,  Dwyer.  You  have 
been  reading  profane  history  and  takin'  your 
excavation  report  from  un-Christian  scientists 
who  are  doin'  the  divil's  work  in  tryin'  to  de- 
stroy the  Bible.  You've  got  us  back  now  more 
than  two  thousand  years  before  the  Good  Book 
tells  that  God  made  man  at  all.  We  can  stand 
for  political  heresy;  but  we'll  not  stand  for  any 
of  that  kind  of  falsifying  profane  history  doc- 
trine that  you  started  out  with.  And  I  demand 
that  you  retire  from  the  chair  and  discontinue 
your  talk.'  " 

The  timely  arrival  of  Sergeant  Eagan  an- 
nouncin'  that  Mintz'  Clothes  Pressing  Parlor 
next  door  was  on  fire,  and  advising,  them  for 
safety  to  lav^e  the  hall  as  quick  as  possible  saved 
the  day,  as  both  sides  were  equally  divided. 


SPEECH  DELIVERED  BY  OLD  MAN  AN- 
THONY DEVLIN  AFTER  TAKING  TWO 
SUPS  OF  SHEEHAN'S  WHISKEY. 

"McKenna,"  says  Con  O'Brien,  "the  Forty- 
first  Precinct  Club  had  one  grand  time  at  our 
last  meeting;  we  had  everything  that  goes  to 
make  up  sociability,  with  song  and  talk  galore. 

"McKenna,  whatever  is  in  that  whisky  of 
Sheehans,  I  don't  know,  but  they  say  it  will 
make  a  dummy  talk. 

"When  old  man  Anthony  Devlin  got  in  two 
glasses  of  it  you  could  not  stop  him,  and  without 
it  you  couldn't  get  a  word  out  of  him  any  more 
than  you  could  out  of  a  stone. 

"Well,  sir,  we  got  him  to  make  a  speech.  He 
started  in  by  saying  he  didn  't  know  what  the  ris- 
ing generation  was  coming  to  at  all.  'Ye 're  a 
race  of  chance-takers,'  said  he.  'And,  boys,  let 
me  tell  ye ;  I  was  in  the  employ  of  the  Brooklyn 
Department  of  Public  Works  the  summer  that 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  took  hell  out  of  religion. 
T  knew  Henry  well,  and  one  day,  says  I  to  him, 
'Your  Riverince,  when  you  get  hell  out  of  re- 


66  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

ligion,  then  you've  lost  control  of  the  rising  gen 
eration.'  And  the  longer  I  live  the  more  con- 
vinced I  am  of  the  same.  And  now  it's  the  same 
thing  with  politics.  When  the  politicians  put 
civil  service  into  politics,  ye  lost  control  of  the 
precinct  workers. 

"In  the  ould  days  they  sent  out  their  call.  If 
every  one  did  not  respond  with  every  relation 
they  had,  there  would  be  something  doing  before 
the  week  was  over.  Now,  when  they  send  out  a 
call,  all  the  gang  begins  to  stall. 

"I  know  it;  I've  worked  in  the  West  Parks 
mowing  the  grass  when  William  J.  Cooke  was 
the  superintendent,  and  at  the  time  Yates  was 
Governor.  We  had  one  of  them  severe  Swede 
foremen  over  us,  and  this  was  a  primary  day. 
Said  he :  'The  General — meaning  William  Cooke 
— will  be  around  tomorrow  to  inspect,  and  the 
grass  must  be  attended  to — primary  or  no  pri- 
mary. ' 

"Well,  sir,  I  said  to  the  boys,  'look  out  ye 
for  the  primary;  God  will  care  for  the  grass. 
But  if  ye  lose  the  primary,  there'll  be  new  grass 
mowers  here  in  a  short  time.'  And  I  whis- 
pered, 'A  new  boss,  too.' 

"Well,  the  boss  insisted  that  the  grass  must 
be  first  attinded  to,  and  the  result  was  our  fel- 
lows lost  the  primary  by  six  votes. 

"And  as  true  as  I'm  tellin'  ye,  there  were 
very  soon  new  grass  mowers  and  new  bosses  on 
the  job.  And  with  the  new  min  came  civil  serv- 
ice. One  of  the  questions,  in  order  to  get  a  job 


WHAT  MADE  DEVLIN  TALK  67 

mowing  grass,  was  to  describe  hydrogen  and 
oxygen. 

''Said  I  in  me  answer,  'Divil  a  gin  I  know  of 
but  Holland  gin  and  it's  all  right  for  thim 
wooden-shoe  fellows,  but  it's  very  sickenin'  for 
the  Irish  if  you  take  too  much  of  it  at  one  feed. ' 

"I  passed  the  examination. 

"Now,  I  see  by  the  papers,  that  a  society  of 
old  men  and  women  are  about  to  take  the  exe- 
cution out  of  the  law.  You  may  laugh,  but 
stranger  things  have  been  done.  Little  Dinny 
McManus'  bill  will  then  come  into  play,  and  it 
will  regulate  everything.  You  have  now  the 
honor  of  bein'  tried  before  a  jury  of  your  fel- 
low citizens.  But  Dinny 's  bill  changes  it  to 
read,  'You  will  be  tried  in  all  cases  by  men  in 
your  own  line  of  business.'  This,  says  Dinny, 
'will  clean  the  court  calendar,  will  empty  the 
jails,  will  reduce  the  number  of  judges  and 
court  bailiffs  and  juries  and  all  that,  and  will 
save  the  tax  payers  money.'  Dinny  says  there's 
tricks  in  all  trades  but  the  carpenters,  and  at 
times  they  drive  a  screw  with  the  hammer.  And 
so  it  will  be  in  all  things.  What  to  an  outsider 
now  seems  an  offinse,  whin  you're  tried  by  min 
in  your  own  line  of  business,  they  will  see  that 
the  offense  that  you're  charged  with  is  but  a 
trick  in  the  trade  and  no  harm  or  great  wrong 
attached  to  it— especially  no  crime. 

"It's  horse  traders  will  act  as  the  jurymen  in 
all  cases  where  cheating  goes  on  in  regard  to 
horse  trading.  Preachers  will  be  tried  by 


68  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

preachers,  bankers  by  bankers,  gamblers  by 
gamblers,  trusts  by  the  trust  officials,  commis- 
sion men  by  commission  men.  So  you  can  see 
by  this  bill  of  Dinny's,  with  hell  out  of  religion, 
civil  service  in  politics,  the  execution  out  of  the 
law  and  Dinnys  bill  in  operation,  there's  a 
brighter  and  happier  day  for  us  all  in  store." 

After  these  remarks  Anthony  fainted,  and  he 
was  revived  by  another  glass  of  the  same  kind 
of  whiskey  that  started  him  to  talkin'.  and  the 
meetin'  adjourned  for  the  summer  months. 


LITTLE  JOHNNIES  INQUIRY. 


Grandpa,  you  must  tell   to  me, 

What's    all    this    war    about? 
My   teacher- — she  don't  seem   to   know 

Makes    Mamma    cry   to    tell, 
And    Murphy's  boy.    he  swore   today! 

He   said    that   war   was   hell! 

Now,    Grandpa,   you   must   tell   to  me, 

'Cause   then   I'll  know  just  why 
When    Mamma   gets   Pa's   letters, 
She  always  starts  to  cry. 

Mamma's   not    the    only    one, 
'Cause   I   know    other   boys 
That  have  Pa's,   too,   that's  gone  to  war 
And   Mamma's,   too,    that  cry. 

Say,    Grandpa,    do   just   tell    to   me! 

'Cause  then  I'll   know  just  why 
When   Mammas  get   those   letters 

They  always  start  to  cry. 

Grandpa   will   not    tell    to   you 

What's   all    this  war   about, 
'Cause    if    it    was    that    easy 

Then    there'd   be   no   reason   why 
That   Papa's,    too,   must   go  to  war 

And  Mamma's  have  to  cry. 

— John  J.   McKenna. 


70  MCKENNA'S  STOEIES 

THOUGHTS  OF  THE  HOUR. 


Here's  to  the  thoughts  expressed  in  words, 

By  men  in  days  gone  by; 
Whose  object  was  to  raise  mankind, 

Or  in  the  struggle  die. 

Here's  to  tJhe  thought  mankind 
Before  the  law  shall  on  an  equal  stand; 

And  here's  to  the  men  who  expressed  in  words 
These   sentiments   so   grand. 

Here's  to  the  conditions  brought  about 
To  prove  those  thoughts  were  true; 

And  here's  to  the  men  w*ho  sacrificed 
To  better  I  and  you. 

Herd's  to  the  unmarked  graves 

Where  lie  those  heroes  true, 
Whose  lives  were  but  a  sacrifice 

To  better  I  and  you. 

Here's  to  the  grand  old  flag! 

And  the  Constitution,  too; 
And  here's  to  the  thoughts  expressed  in  words, 

That  have  proven  staunch  and  true; 
And  here's  to  the  men  whose  thoughts  and  words 

Have  bettered  I  and  you. 

Here's  to  George  Washington 

And  Abraham  Lincoln,  too. 
And  to  all  brave  men  who  did  the  things 

To  better  I  and  you. 

Here's  again  to  our  Constitution, 

And  to  those  heroes  of  the  days  gone  by, 

Who  left  that  Constitution 
To  protect  both  you  and  T. 

Let  our  Congress  not  now  desert  us, 

But  as  free  men,  staunch  and  true, 
With  all  t'heir  might,  stand  for  the  right, 

As  Washington  taught  them  to. 

John  J. 


YOUNG  DOUGHERTY  THE  LAWYER  ON 
PRACTICAL  GOVERNMENT  AND  NICHO- 
LAS RYAN'S  VIEWS  ON  A  FEW  OTHER 
THINGS. 

"McKenna,"  says  Dan  Flynn  of  the  33rd 
Precinct, '  *  last  Tuesday  night  was  a  great  night 
for  oratory  in  our  precinct.  Big  Tom  Dough- 
erty's son,  the  young  lawyer,  made  the  princi- 
pal talk  of  the  evening. 

"Begorra,  McKenna,  it  takes  Sheehan  or 
Cassidy's  whisky  to  make  some  of  thim  talk; 
but  this  laddie  Buck  could  talk  all  day  on  ice 
water.  The  risin'  generation  is  a  wonder.  It 
makes  me  laugh  when  I  think  back.  I  knew 
most  of  their  grandfathers.  They  were  good 
handy  min  with  the  shovel,  and  artists  at  erect- 
ing straight  lumber  piles  and  the  like  o'  that. 
But  the  risin'  gineration's  away  from  the  shovel 
and  the  lumber  pile.  It's  nothin'  now  but  'Dr. 
Schultz,  Lawyer  Dougherty,  Banker  and  Broker 
McNear  and  Fault,  etc.,  etc. 

"  'Why  is  the  cause  of  this?'  said  I  to  little 
Nicholas  Ryan  of  the  31st  precinct.  'Well,  sir,' 


7:2  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

said  he,  'let  me  tell  ye  ye  can't  raise  good 
shovelers  and  lumber  pilers  on  one  of  thim  bot- 
tles with  the  rubber  nipple.  Now  that's  the 
whole  thing  in  a  nut  shell,'  said  he. 

'  *  Sure,  the  first  thing  a  young  couple  thinks  of 
now  when  they're  gettin'  married  is  the  bird 
cage  and  the  silver  collar  for  the  dog;  and  if 
any  mishaps  does  occur,  thin  for  the  bottle  and 
the  bogus  malted  milk.  There's  yer  answer  for 
ye,  now.  No  good  shovelers  or  lumber  pilers 
will  come  from  that  stuff. 

''Well,  sir,  young  Dougherty  gave  us  a  talk 
on  practical  government.  Said  he.  'The  ould 
days  of  the  min  with  the  broad-brimmed  hat 
and  homespun  suit,  and  with  the  glad  hand  is  a 
thing  o'  the  past.  The  man,'  said  he,  'that  has 
control  of  the  feed  box  and  the  meal  ticket  is 
the  man  we  take  our  hat  off  to  today.  There's 
tickets,'  said  he,  'for  the  water  pipe  extension 
department  employees.  The  trust  meal  ticket,' 
said  he,  'is  the  right  to  go  on  and  clean  up 
things  without  bein'  investigated,  and  the 
gambler's  meal  ticket  is  a  like  one.  The  race- 
track man's  ticket  is  the  privilege  of  running 
races  with  the  assistance  of  the  Sheriff.  The 
show  man's  ticket  is  the  right  to  crowd  the  aisle 
and  scalp  the  tickets  without  the  interference 
of  the  police  force.  The  every  day  business 
man's  ticket  is  a  privilege  to  block  the  sidewalks 
with  his  goods  and  wares  as  though  he  was  the 
only  one  on  earth.  The  real  estate  man's  ticket 
is  the  privilege  of  violatin'  city  ordinances,  sub- 
dividing and  building  imitation  homes  to  sell  the 


LAWYER  DOUGHERTY  73 

public.  The  stock  exchange  man's  ticket  is  the 
right  to  buy  and  sell  the  earth  and  all  things 
therein  five  times  per  day  on  margins  without 
it's  being  classified  as  gambling.  And  so  it  goes 
along  down  the  line,'  said  he.  'Railroads,  gas, 
electric  and  telephone  tickets  is  the  privilege 
that  ye 're  all  acquainted  with.  Everybody  is 
after  a  meal  ticket  and  hence  the  power  of  the 
new  political  king.' 

"  'Think,'  said  he,  'of  the  assortment  of  meal 
tickets  our  President  has  on  hand,  and  the 
mayors  of  the  big  cities.  It  makes  one  of  thim 
kings  on  the  other  side  of  the  pool  look  like 
thirty  cents  compared  with  what  our  bosses 
have.  And,  said  he,  'if  Napoleon  Bonaparte  had 
had  the  meal  tickets  at  his  disposal  when  he  was 
on  the  island  of  St.  Helena,  that  those  I  have 
mentioned  have,  he  would  have  had  the  holders 
of  them  put  to  work  and  bail  out  the  ocean  so 
that  he  could  drive  home  with  his  coach  and 
four. 

"  'A  job  holders'  meal  ticket,'  said  he,  'is  but 
a  lead  one  compared  with  the  new  conditions. 
It's  not  Ould  Brown,  the  merchant,  any  more,' 
said  he,  'but  it's  the  Brown  Company,  a  crea- 
ture of  the  political  powers  that  be.  And  it 
needs  a  meal  ticket  to  keep  it  from  slipping  a 
cog, '  said  he. 

"  'There 're  all  kinds  of  meal  tickets;  one 
legalizing  certain  business  that  certain  folks  are 
radical  enough  to  term  gamblin'.  The  ticket 
holders  of  tariff  reduction  and  reduction  of  rev- 
enues on  certain  goods  controlled  by  certain  in- 


74  McKENNA's  STORIES 

terests;  conservative  banking  law  tickets;  con- 
servative insurance  tickets;  life  is  too  short  to 
mintion  thim  all, '  said  he. 

"  'But,'  said  he,  'the  same  ould  meal  ticket 
when  out  workin'  produced  the  same  effect  on 
the  grand  common  people  of  America  that  it 
does  on  the  aristocrats  of  Europe.  It  keeps 
thim  bowin'  and  scrapin'  to  their  respective 
made  and  born  bosses.  It  cements  a  bond  of 
friendship  between  them  that  keeps  the  existing 
condition  of  things  together. 

"  'And  you  notice,'  said  he,  'when  any  one 
does  anything  to  disturb  the  ould  boss  of  the 
meal  ticket,  all  the  ticket  boulders  begin  to 
chirrup;  and  when  you  start  to  do  up  the  ould 
boss,  ye  find,'  said  he,  'ye  have  to  do  up  all  the 
ticket  boulders.  For  we  are  a  very  conserva- 
tive people,'  said  he,  'when  things  are  in  our 
favor. 

"  'But,'  said  he,  'we  can  see  power  and  vir- 
tue is  alike — it's  aisy  destroyed.  And  when  ye 
lose  the  job  as  boss  of  the  feed  box  and  distribu- 
tor of  the  meal  ticket,  you're  like,'  said  he,  'the 
Czar  of  all  the  Russias — that  small  that  you 
could  not  be  seen  by  one  of  thim  powerful 
glasses  used  by  the  street  corner  astronomer 
that  shows  you  the  moon.' 

"McKenna,  young  Dougherty  is  a  fine  looker 
—I  wish  him  success.  But  they  say  in  my  part 
of  the  ould  country,  "the  bigger  the  rogue,  the 
more  grinteel.' 

"At  this  juncture  of  the  meeting  Cassidy 
stepped  in  and  rose  up  his  hand.  Must  a  mo- 


LAWYER  DOUGHERTY  75 

ment,'  said  he;  'when  ye  adjourn,  come  over  to 
my  place.  I've  just  tapped  a  fresh  keg  of 
lemonade  and  want  to  have  the  privilege  of 
givin'  a  treat  to  the  success  of  young  Dough- 
erty, our  neighbor.' 

"And  we  did.   The  meeting  was  a  grand  suc- 
cess." 


76  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

MORE  TRUTH  THAN  POETRY. 


There  is  a  fountain  and  a  great  one, 
Widespread  in  our  land; 

Thousands  of  God's  people  it  has  in  command. 
It's  a  fountain  of  all  evil,  an  ocean  of  tears. 
From  its  fountain  head  into  this  world  flows 
Directly  or  indirectly  all  our  miseries  and  woes. 

From  this  monster  fountain  many  streams  doth  flow, 

And  to  near  all  of  God's  people,  in  high  rank  and  low, 

It  has  left  its  mark.   And  lo!   Mark  its  woe! 

In  its  sparkling  stream  as  it  gracefully  glides 

From  our  beautiful  cities  to  our  far  mountain  sides, 

Where'er  it  has  rested  it  has  there  left  its  trace, 

It's  killing  by  thousands  the  men  of  our  race. 

It's  a  fountain  of  enterprise,  not  one  of  God's  make, 
It's  established  for  us  in  this  land  of  the  free, 
Our  asylums  and  prisons — yes,  far  worse  I  see 
In  its  terrible  flow,  in  its  terrible  strife 
It  has  caused  separation  of  husband  and  wrife. 
It  has  caused  little  children  the  streets  to  roam 
Without  father  or  mother,  shelter  or  home. 
In  hunger  and  rags  doMi  it  cause  them  to  go 
To  the  prison  door  with  its  stream  do  they  flow. 

All  of  our  hopes  doth  its  stream  flood  away, 
In  it  our  lives  and  our  prospects  decay; 
Our  God,  our  Lord,  our  family,  our  friends, 
Our  virtue,  our  morals  to  its  bottom  descend, 
Oh,  it's  that  cursed  fountain  for  which  many  crave 
And  with  its  stream  flow  to  the  poor  pauper's  grave. 

— John  J.  McKenna. 


RYAN  ON  LOYALTY  TO  THE  FLAG. 

"Begorra,"  says  Nicholas  Ryan,  in  beginning 
his  address,  "McKenna"  will  have  us  talkin' 
until  some  fine  day  Sergeant  Egan  and  Captain 
Madden  of  the  Brighton  Station  will  come  along 
and  jug  us  all. 

"Well,  we  can  do  notMn'  else  to  enjiy  our- 
selves but  talk.  What  was  fun  to  us  once  is 
now  labor,  and  we  are  past  that.  The  park  fields 
we  now  give  over  to  the  young  folks. 

"But  here  in  the  memory  of  the  late  beloved 
McKinley,  unless  we  forget  ourselves  for  the 
moment,  we  could  nayther  say  nor  think  any- 
thing that  would  intintionally  harm  anyone. 

"Everybody  is  trying  to  say  and  do  things 
that  would  regulate  the  things  of  the  worrld  to 
their  liking. 

"But  it's  the  divil's  job  to  do  the  convincin'. 
There  have  been  many  good  talkers  in  the  field 
since  the  ould  world  first  began  to  bob  around, 
and  a  never  a  one  of  'em  as  yet  has  been  able 
to  get  away  with  his  argument  without  finding 
a  disputer.  The  same  is  true  with  ye — the  divil 
an  argument  can  a  man  present  to  ye,  but  y'er 


78  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

there  with  your  documentary  evidence  and  sta- 
tistics to  prove  he  is  wrong  or  mistaken  in  his 
conception  of  the  subject  presinted. 

"So  a  man  may  just  as  well  be  sayin'  non- 
sensical things  to  ye  as  presentin'  solid  matter, 
for  ye  dispute  it  no  matter  what  is  presinted. 

"As  Barney  O'Flynn  tells  of  his  experience 
he  had  in  a  week 's  stay  on  the  jury.  Says  Bar- 
ney, "The  divil  such  eleven  stubborn  men  did  T 
ever  meet  in  my  life  as  I  did  on  that  jury.  I 
near  talked  myself  to  death  trying  to  convince 
them  that  the  way  they  ought  to  decide  the  case 
was  as  I  thought.  It  was  a  useless  job.  I  said 
to  Barney, '  May  be  ye  were  wrong. '  '  No, '  says 
Barney — 'how  could  I  be  wrong!' 

"An'  that's  the  way  with  a  lot  of  ye.  I  be- 
lieve in  free  speech  to  any  one.  I  think  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  let  any  one  shout  out  that  what 
is  in  thim ;  the  gallery  will  soon  decide  whether 
he's  in  the  right  or  wrong,  and  if  wrong  they'll 
be  there  wit'  their  answers,  'back  to  the  high 
timbers  with  you.'  But  I  don't  believe  in  a  fel- 
low, that  when  the  gallery  decides  that  he  is 
wrong,  that  he  is  then  in  for  b'atin  you  or  pullin' 
the  gun  out  to  make  you  believe  as  he  does. 

"Now  Teddy  says  we'll  have  to  do  something 
to  stop  this  disloyalty  that  is  goin'  on.  Well, 
sor,  Teddy  with  all  his  good  faults  is  the  sub- 
marine of  startin'  things.  When  he  thinks  a 
thing  is  wrong — no  matter  what  others  may 
think — he's  there  with  the  sledge  hammer  im- 
mediately. He  tore  up  the  red  tape  in  the  army 
with  one  rip  whin  he  went  out  wit*  the  b'ys  to 


"OuLD  NICK"  AT  IT  79 

Santiago.  He  dropped  the  pile  driver  hammer 
weight  on  ould  Bill  Taft  and  the  Republican 
machine  at  the  Coliseum ;  and  if  he  had  his  way 
he  would  have  had  us  over  to  beat  the  Kaiser 
without  givin '  us  time  to  put  on  our  clothes. 

"Teddy's  like  Barney  0 'Flynn— hasty  but 
well  meanin'.  Barney  was  workin'  on  the  sewer 
wit'  Tom  Byrnes,  when  one  day  an  Italian  said 
something  to  Barney.  He  up  wit'  the  shovel  an' 
let  it  fly  at  the  Italian.  And  as  it  was  makin' 
its  way  for  the  Italian's  head  Barney  cried  out 
'Tony,  dodge  it',  said  he.  That's  the  doings  and 
sayin's  of  things  without  considering  the  dam- 
age ye  may  be  doin'. 

"Well  surely  every  body  can't  say  what 
Teddy  says  without  being  jugged.  But  he  sets 
the  example,  and  the  lesser  lights  follow  him. 
An'  that's  the  cause  of  all  this  turmoil  that's 
now  going  on  in  the  country. 

"Sure  there's  no  American  that's  disloyal  to 
the  principle  as  laid  down  by  Washington,  Jef- 
ferson and  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. Now  that's  the  country — it's  not 
the  grassy  fields,  or  the  hills  or  the  water— it's 
those  sentiments  that's  America.  That's  what 
the  Flag  stands  for.  There's  no  one  disl'yal  to 
that.  It's  slingin'  the  shovel  without  thinkin' 
of  what  might  be  the  consequence.  That  is  the 
cause  of  our  turmoil  but  there  is  no  disl'yalty. 

"But  there  are  things  that  people  are  inquir- 
ing about;  we  see  all  the  min,  children  and 
women  in  harness  workin'.  We  know  that  capi- 
tal is  plentiful  and  money  cheap.  New  invin- 


80  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

tions — labor  savin'  machines  of  all  kinds;  great 
educational  institutions  everywhere,  but  we 
can't  find  why,  with  all  that  we  have,  that  the 
masses  of  the  people  are  payin'  higher  prices 
for  every  article  today  than  they  did  whin 
things  were  made  by  hand.  Who  is  doin'  the 
trick?  That's  what  we  would  like  to  know,  and 
how  is  it  done?  Or  would  the  knowin'  take  all 
the  fun  out  of  the  trick? 

' '  These  are  some  of  the  things  we  would  like 
to  be  hearin'  about.  But  after  all,  what's  the 
difference  to  us  ould  fellows,  and  the  divil  the 
care  have  the  young  on  their  minds  but  fun  and 
pleasure,  and  they  have  it,  with  all  our  kicks  and 
f  aultfindin ' ;  and  as  Barney  and  I  took  our 
jaunt  with  our  little  Ford  through  the  classic 
suburban  towns  of  the  North  Shore,  we  see  our 
finish  in  what  we  see  in  others  if  we  live  too 
long.  We  find,  whether  we're  high  financiers, 
or  high  grade  shovelers,  we'll  all  meet  that 
finish  which  we  see  in  our  jaunt.  There  they 
were— the  high  financiers  of  the  past,  the  few 
of  them  that  have  lived  to  the  ripe  ould  age,  as 
I  say,  a  few  years  too  long — there  they  were 
pushin'  the  go  cart  for  the  son  or  daughter-in- 
law  if  there  was  anything  to  push.  If  not,  then 
exercising  the  poodle  or  out  on  the  shady  side 
of  the  lawn  wit'  the  parrot,  learnin'  it  to  swear. 

''Now,  let  ye  go  home  and  think  it  over  until 
next  Thursday  afternoon  when  Pat  Price  will 
be  back  from  his  vacation  with  a  good  fish  story. 
An'  as  they  say  a  good  fisherman  and  a  good 
liar  generally  make  the  trip  together." 


PAT  PRICE  BEFORE  THE  SUN  WORSHIP- 
ERS' CLUB  AT  THE  M'KINLEY  PARK  ON 
HIS  RETURN  FROM  VACATION.  HIS 
FISH  STORY  IS  GOOD. 

Pat  Price,  President  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Pre- 
cinct Republican  Club  addresses  the  Sun  Wor- 
shipers Club  at  McKinley  Park  on  his  return 
from  his  vacation. 

"Well,  I'm  glad  to  see  this  number  of  ye  here 
this  afternoon.  I  would  have  forgot  all  about 
the  meetin '  but  for  John  Noonan  's  kid.  Said  he 
to  me  'Mr.  Price,  are  you  goin'  to  the  Sun  Wor- 
shiper's Club  this  afternoon!' 

"What  the  divil  do  ye  in 'an  wid  yer  Sun 
Worshipers  Club?" 

"  'Well,'  said  he  'we  kids  call  you  fellows  Sun 


82  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

Worshipers  because  ye'r  always  on  the  sunny 
side  of  the  McKinley  monument  on  cold  days.' 

* '  Chase  yourself, ' '  said  I  to  him,  and  he  made 
a  noise  at  me  like  a  billy  goat. 

' '  Well,  sir,  that  Dutchman,  George  Abhau  and 
John  Noonan  have  that  many  kids  running 
loose  in  the  park  they  ought  to  be  payin'  a  spe- 
cial tax  for  them. 

"Well,  sir,  anyhow,  fishin'  is  a  pleasure.  As 
Barney  O'Flynn  says  'charity  covers  a  multi- 
tude of  sins.'  So  say  I  fishin'  covers  a  mul- 
titude of  secrets  from  the  ould  woman,  for  as 
Barney  says,  at  times  he  likes  a  drop,  and  the 
ould  woman  is  on  to  him.  She  wouldn't  give  in 
that  she  knew  he  was  takin'  it,  for  if  she  did, 
she  knows  he'd  finish  the  job.  But  she  hacked 
and  sighed  and  says — 'Barney.'  Do  you  smell 
what  I  smell,  would  the  house  be  on  fire,  or 
what  is  it  do  ye  think?'  Very  well  does  she  know 
what  it  is,  and  she  hints  very  strong,  but  still 
won't  give  in.  So  to  make  a  long  story  short 
the  Lake  Front  is  a  good  place— there  is  lots  of 
room  there  an'  ye'r  in  the  company  of  thim  that 
the  smell  of  the  bottle  is  not  offensive  to. 

" Barney  O'Flynn  said  to  me  today  'did  ye 
ever  notice  the  wimmin?  The  first  question  your 
wife  will  ask  mine  when  they  meet  is  'How  is 
Barney?'  and  the  next  is  'Is  he  workinT  That's 
all  they  care  —  is  he  workin. '  For  then  they 
know  the  pay  envelope  will  be  comin'.  Begorra, 
they're  on  to  PS'  says  Barney.  But  I  say  wid 
all  their  faults  we  couldn't  get  along  without 
thim.  They  may  rummage  yer  pockets  to  see 


PAT  PRICE'S  FISH  STORY  83 

that  there's  no  holes  in  thim  that  you  might  lose 
your  change,  and  sometimes  fight  with  you. 
But  ever  since  they  j'ined  partners  with  us  in 
strippin  the  tree  of  the  apples  in  the  Garden  of 
Aiden,  it  seems  the  divil  couldn't  keep  us  apart. 
"This  is  a  very  appropriate  place  to  meet- 
here  at  the  monument  erected  in  the  memory  of 
William  McKinley.  Historians  may  write  that 
there  were  greater  men  than  McKinley,  but  his 
death  came  at  a  time  whin  our  beloved  country 
was  at  peace  and  harmony,  with  prosperity 
smilin'  on  the  face  of  every  man,  woman  and 
child,  rich  and  poor,  throughout  the  lingth  and 
breadth  of  the  land. 

' '  Whin  other  great  min  died,  there  was  some 
ould  sting  from  some  cause  that  with  some 
people  could  not  be  forgotten  at  the  time. 

' '  But  when  the  clock  stopped  and  the  hum  of 
industry  died  for  the  moment  in  respect  to 
McKinley 's  memory,  there  was  not  a  sting  left 
in  the  h'arts  or  the  minds  of  the  American  peo- 
ple. An'  the  spirit  of  good  will  that  was  shown 
to  his  memory  on  that  day  was  sincere  and  came 
from  the  hearts,  as  pure  as  the  smile  that  comes 
to  the  face  of  a  loving  child,  and  may  the  Lord 
be  always  good  to  him. 

"Well,  Barney  O'Flynn  and  myself  are  good 
fishermen  if  we  have  to  say  it  ourselves.  An'  I 
am  now  going  to  tell  ye  of  one  of  our  fishin' 
trips  below  at  the  Lake  Front  some  years  back. 
After  what  we  see,  heard,  and  drank,  we  thought 
thin,  as  ye  do  now,  that  we  had  the  solution  of 


84  McKENNA's  STORIES 

the  very  questions  that  keep  ye  here  arguin' 
about  day  afther  day.  The  story  is  this : 

"  'As  we  set  out  on  the  lake  pier,  along  came 
an  ould  Game  and  Fish  Warden  that  said  he 
was  from  somewhere  down  in  Egypt,  Illinois. 
It  was  at  the  time  the  late  'Private  John'  Tan- 
ner was  the  Governor  of  Illinois.  'Well',  said 
the  Game  Warden,  when  he  took  a  look  at  what 
he  see  goin'  on,  said  he,  lookin'  at  Barney  and 
myself — 'There's  something  wrong  in  Den- 
mark,' said  he.  There  to  his  view  was  the 
Swedes,  the  Danes  and  the  Norwegians,  fishin' 
wit  nets  and  seines,  and  the  balance  of  us  had 
only  the  line  and  hook.  There,  said  he,  *  they  are 
like  the  high  financiers.  They  fish  for  fish  and 
the  dollars,  while  ye  fish  for  fish  and  the  sport 
that's  in  it.  They  have  carts  to  carry  away 
their  catch,  while  ye  could  aisly  carry  away  yer 
catch,  on  a  small  shtring. 

"  'That's  not  fair,'  said  he;  'things  are  not 
equalized  right.' 

''Just  then  come  along  an  Irishman  by  the 
name  of  McDermott.  I  will  never  forget  him. 
The  Irish  are  ginerally  religiously  inclined.  But 
whin  ye  get  one  of  thim  that  is  not,  the  divil 
only  knows  what  he  may  do.  They  say  it  was 
wan  of  thim  that  invinted  the  submarine,  but 
I'm  not  thinkin'  that  bad  of  thim. 

"But  anyway,  this  McDermott  came  along 
wit'  what  we  afterwards  found  out  to  be  a  stick 
of  dynamite — a  wire  wit'  a  battery  attached  to 
it.  Whin  the  Swedes,  and  the  Danes  and  the 


PAT  PRICE'S  FISH  STORY  85 

Norwegians  see  him,  they  stopped  their  work  to 
watch  him.  The  Game  Warden  never  see  the 
like  of  that  below  in  Egypt,  and  was  not  heedin' 
McDermott  until  he  touched  the  button.  Well, 
sir,  up  come  a  splash  and  up  come  ten  thousand 
fish.  It  took  all  the  carts  in  the  First  Ward  to 
carry  all  the  fish  away. 

"  'Well,  sir,'  said  the  ould  Game  Warden,  'I 
will  put  a  stop  to  all  this.  Things  must  be 
aiqualized,'  said  he.  And  back  to  Springfield 
with  him.  He  had  a  bill  passed  aiqualizing 
things  in  the  fish  line,  compelling  them  all  to  go 
back  to  the  hook  and  line,  so  that  all  would  get 
an  equal  chance  at  the  fish. 

"  'Well,  sir,'  said  Barney  O'Flynn  to  me,  af- 
ter takin'  another  sup  from  the  bottle;  'here, 
you  take  a  drop,  too.'  Said  he,  'We  have  now 
solved  the  whole  question  that's  uppermost  in 
the  minds  of  the  people  over  the  question  of 
regulatin'  things  on  the  river  of  commerce,  said 
he. 

"What  do  we  find,  said  I.  At  the  head  of  the 
stream  there  was  ould  Jay  Gould,  ould  Morgan, 
ould  Vanderbilt,  wit'  their  nets.  Thin  come 
along  young  Forgan,  young  Vanderbilt,  Carne- 
gie and  Schwab,  with  their  seines,  and  spread 
them  clear  across  the  river  of  Commerce,  wit 
the  fish  swimming  low,  and  the  swiftness  of  the 
tide,  divil  a  catch  at  all  could  the  great  mass  of 
fishermen,  wit'  the  hook  and  line  get;  lucky  if 
they  srot  a  nibble. 

"When  alone:  came  ould  man  Harriman,  wit' 
the  Irishman  McDermott 's  tactics  of  dynamite. 


86  McKfiNNA's  STORIES 

With  his  plan  he  caused  a  splash  in  the  river  of 
Commerce  that  so  wet  or  watered  the  stocks  of 
all  the  concerns  that  he  was  interested  in,  that 
their  price  was  thirty  fold  increased  to  him  af- 
ter the  duckin '  he  gave  them.  Well,  he  near  took 
all  the  money  in  sight  with  him.  When  we  see 
that,  Barney  cried  out: 

"  'Now  for  the  solution,  Patrick!  We  will 
have  our  Congressman  present  a  bill  similar  to 
the  Fish  Warden's  bill  compellin'  them  all  to  go 
back  to  the  hook  and  line.' 

"Well,  sir,  to  our  surprise  the  Invisible  Gov- 
ernment, as  Root  called  it  when  he  was  a  candi- 
date for  office — it  did  to  our  bill  what  the  dog 
pound  master  does  to  the  vicious  dogs  when 
they  come  to  the  dog  pound — chloroform  them. 
Our  Congressman  said  'that's  the  fate  your  bill 
met— chloroformed  in  the  committee',  said  he. 
And  there  you  are.  The  divil  a  sign  or  tidin' 
has  ever  been  heard  of  it  since. 

"  'Well,'  said  Barney,  when  he  heard  the 
news,  'our  bait  was  too  small  to  go  regulatin' 
things  wit'  anyway.  But  may  be  it's  all  for  the 
best,'  said  Barney.  'For  many's  the  hole  would 
be  left  undug  if  some  of  us  was  not  broke.' 

"With  this  I'm  goin'  to  quit  ye,  but  will  be 
here  next  Thursday  to  hear  from  some  of  the 
other  boys  that  will  have  returned  from  their 
vacation  for  lack  of  funds." 


RYAN,  THE  STATISTICIAN,  AND  M'KENNA 
IN  CONVERSATION. 

"McKenna,"  said  Nicholas  Ryan,  the  statis- 
tician of  the  Sun  Worshipers  Club,  "you  will 
have  to  do  me  a  favor.  It's  like  this,  when- 
ever there's  a  lot  of  talkin'  going  on,  or  letter 
writin'  there's  always  explanations  to  follow. 
For  instance,  whin  the  Pope,  or  Wilson,  or  the 
Kaiser  sind  out  letters  or  make  speeches,  you'll 
see  following  their  letter  or  addresses,  explana- 
tions by  the  cabinet  members  and  secretaries 
sayin'  what  was  said  didn't  mean  what  ye 
fought;  but  it  meant  this  and  that,  and  sir,  it 
seems  as  if  it  takes  months  before  that  what 
was  said  is  explained  so  that  we  can  under- 
stand what  was  meant  by  the  words  that  were 
said ;  and  now  the  same  is  true  in  what  I  'm  go- 
ing to  explain  to  you.  It's  all  concerning  some 
remarks  that  Pat  Price  of  the  31st  Precinct 
made  at  the  meeting  at  McKinley  Park.  Price 
is  a  friend  of  mine,  and  he 's  all  right ;  but  mis- 
statements  will  occur.  He  wants  me  to  apolo- 
gize for  him.  Now,  I'm  up  on  statistics,  but  am 
no  good  on  apologizing  especially  where  women 


88  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

are  concerned— an'  that's  the  rub.    An'  that's 
why  I'm  askin'  ye  to  do  the  apologizin'  for  nie. 

"Now,  it's  like  this:  When  Pat  Price  was 
comin'  down  38th  street  on  the  day  of  the 
meetin',  he  was  met  by,  a  kid  askin'  him  if 
he  was  goin'  to  the  Sun "  Worshipers  Club 
meetin',  and  some  words  took  place  between 
them.  Well,  sir,  John  Ralston,  the  saloon 
keeper,  was  standin'  in  front  of  his  buffet  just 
whin  the  conversation  took  place.  Ralston  is 
full  of  tricks.  After  the  conversation,  Price 
stepped  into  Ralston 's  buffet  to  have  a  'sup'  to 
kind  o'  brace  him  up  for  the  speech  he  was  goin' 
to  deliver  at  the  park,  and  Price  said  to  Rals- 
ton: 'Whose  kid  was  that?' 

"Now,  Ralston  with  his  tricks  said:  'That's 
John  Noonan's  kid.'  And  further  said  he  'John 
Noonan  and  the  German  contractor,  George 
Abhaue,  have  that  many  kids  runnin'  loose  in 
the  park  that  they  ought  to  be  payin'  a  special 
tax  for  thim. '  Well,  you  see  this  deceived 
Price  and  in  his  remarks  at  the  park  he  min- 
tioned  that  report.  Price  was  angry  at  the  kid 
for  some  remark  that  he  made  that  vexed  him. 
"Well,  it  now  turns  out  that  Mrs.  John 
Noonan  is  your  sister,  McKenna ;  and  she  stop- 
ped Price  on  the  street  askin'  him  to  explain. 
Said  she  to  Price,  'I  have  no  children  at  all; 
and  if  my  husband,  John  Noonan,  has  that  many 
of  thim  that  they're  crowdin'  the  park,  I  want 
to  learn  about  it.'  Well,  she  and  Mrs.  George 
Abhaue  are  two  personal  friends,  and  it's  the 


RYAN  IN  TROUBLE  89 

same  case  with  Mrs.  Abhaue,  and  she's  after 
Price  for  an  explanation.  An'  her  husband, 
George,  is  very  vexed  and  can't  explain  the 
circumstances  to  her.  And  there  it  is  for  you. 
An'  it's  Ralston,  the  trickster,  that's  the  cause 
of  it  all;  but  he's  under  cover  and  says  he  re- 
members nothin '  of  the  evint. 

' '  So  you  see  how  aisy  a  man  can  be  deceived. 
Now  Price  says  it  was  aisy  to  deceive  him,  as  it 
would  not  be  anything  strange  if  min  wid  such 
names  as  Noonan  and  Abhaue  would  have  a 
flock  of  children.  But  that's  where  Ralston  got 
his  joke  in  on  Price.  Now  I  want  you  to  get 
Price  out  of  his  trouble.  Price  says  that's  the 
first  speech  he  ever  made — an'  says  he  'it  will 
be  the  last  one.'  So,  McKenna,  you'll  do  the 
job  for  me  an'  him  and  have  things  explained. 
"When  you  do,  I  will  promise  you  that  I  will 
have  an  ould  f rind  and  mimber  of  the  Club  de- 
liver us  a  talk  at  one  of  our  meetings  on  the 
money  question.  His  name  is  Barney  Mulligan. 
He  is  a  far-down  north  of  Ireland  linen  peddler. 
So  was  his  father  and  grandfather  before  him. 
They're  the  closest  bargain  makers  in  the 
world.  He  an'  they  traveled  all  over  Ireland, 
England,  Scotland,  and  Wales  with  the  pack; 
they  beat  the  world  on  thrift.  The  Cyrene  ped- 
dler, the  peddler  from  Cairo  or  India,  or  the 
Hebrew  from  Palestine  is  as  much  in  dread  of 
one  of  thim  as  is  a  rat  of  a  ferret.  Whiniver 
one  of  these  other  peddlers  mentioned  finds  one 
of  the  far  down  linen  peddlers  in  a  townland, 


90  MCKJENNA'S  STORIES 

they  quit  the  town  immediately.  Well,  this 
Barney  Mulligan  that  1  am  going  to  have  talk 
to  you  on  the  money  question  knows  all  about 
the  money,  an'  how  to  get  it— an'  how  to  keep  it. 
They  say  that  in  his  young  days  he'd  dive  in 
the  ocean  for  a  sovereign,  an'  he's  got  part  of 
the  first  pound  he  ever  earned.  Well,  sir,  after 
his  travels  he  finally  wound  up  in  Glasgow, 
Scotland,  where  he  married  a  Scotch  lassie ;  and 
as  Barney  O'Flynn  says  'it  was  thrift  joining 
thrift. '  A  far-down  married  to  a  Scotch  lassie, ' 
says  ould  Dougherty;  'an'  the  country  is  gone 
to  the  dogs.'  (No,  Mulligan  is  not  left  handed 
—he's  one  of  us.) 

"W^ell,  sir,  he  started  a  bank  in  Glasgow,  one 
of  thim  banks  that  never  fails — one  with  the 
three  ball  sign,  where  you  would  have  to  give 
up  your  right  eye  to  get  a  loan  of  any  sum  over 
the  dollar.  He  did  all  the  business,  until  a 
Scotch  syndicate  had  to  buy  him  out  to  get  rid 
of  him.  Then  he  landed  in  the  Bowery,  New 
York,  where  he  began  the  same  business — an' 
did  all  the  business,  when  again  a  syndicate  of 
the  'chosen  people'  bought  him  out.  Signs  on 
him,  he  has  got  the  money.  Now  he  spends  his 
time  clipping  coupons  and  lookin'  for  cool  spots 
on  hot  days,  and  warm  spots  on  cold  days. 

"  'Tis  said  of  him  that  the  ould  father  left  an 
injunction  upon  him  before  his  death,  com- 
manded Barney  to  keep  the  Mulligans  away 
from  the  shovel,  an'  he's  kept  the  injunction. 
You  would  have  as  hard  a  task  to  put  the  shovel 


RYAN  IN  TROUBLE  91 

in  the  hands  of  a  Mulligan  as  you  would  to  put 
a  breech  cloth  over  the  limbs  of  a  Semolian 
Indian.  Every  one  of  the  Mulligans  has  an 
M.  D.  or  a  B.  A.  before  or  after  their  name- 
but  there  are  no  shovels  where  the  Mulligans 
are  an'  they  have  the  house  full  of  the  Mulli- 
gans. 

"When  ould  Mulligan  brags — an'  that's  sel- 
dom—he says  that  if  there  are  Scotch-Irish  in 
Donegal,  thin  they're  Irish-Scotch  in  Glasgow 
—and  plenty  of  thim,  and  there  it  is  for  you. 

"Ye  know  what  is  meant  by  the  Scotch-Irish 
and  the  Irish-Scotch.  It's  the  same  as  the  risin' 
gineration  here.  For  instance,  the  German- 
American;  the  Irish- American,  etc.  Their  par- 
ents are  what  they  are,  but  just  because  the 
youngsters  were  born  in  a  different  climate, 
they  put  the  handle  before  the  race.  But  that's 
all  in  your  eye.  They  all  got  the  hyphen  (I 
think  I  have  one  myself,  for  when  anyone  says 
anything  against  Ireland,  it  jumps  here  on  my 
right  side.  Ye 're  laughin',  but  I  tell  ye  they 
have  thim.  Some  slightly,  but  mention  any- 
thing against  the  country  they  or  their  parents 
came  from,  an '  you  will  soon  see  the  hyphen  be- 
gin to  move,  and  as  Dinny  McManus,  the  South 
Boston  boy  doctor  of  the  41st  Precinct  said,  he'd 
like  to  have  the  job  of  operating  for  the  hyphen, 
for  it's  as  big  in  some  of  thim  as  is  the  thrunk 
of  a  circus  elephant. 

"Now,  McKenna,  I  will  finish  with  this;  I 
overheard  a  conversation  between  three 


92  McKENNA's  STOBIES 

scrawny  dudes  last  election  day  in  one  of  the 
hotels  down  town;  an'  this  was  the  drift  of  the 
conversation :  One  asked  the  other  as  to  whether 
he  voted.  'Well,'  said  he  in  his  reply,  'whin  I 
went  to  the  polling  place  and  looked  at  the  bal- 
lot with  all  the  foreign  names  on  it,  said  he, 
'whin  they  put  them  kind  of  cattle  on  the  ticket 
I'll  stop  votin'. '  I  have  been  thinkin'  it  over 
ever  since,  but  today  in  lookin'  over  the  names 
of  the  draft  list,  my  eyes  were  opened —  I  saw 
the  light.  I  wish  wherever  those  three  scrawny 
dudes  are  today  they  will  look  that  list  over 
from  anny where  in  Cook  County,  includin'  Oak 
Park,  Evanston  and  Highland  Park.  If  it  were 
not  for  thim  foreign  names  tell  me  where  you'd 
get  your  min  from.  Thim  boys,  as  they  go  off 
with  their  gun,  will  still  retain  thim  good  ould 
names  they  have.  An '  the  gineration  after  thim 
will  still  have  thim.  So  I  hope  thim  three 
scrawny  dudes  the  next  time  they  go  to  the  poll- 
in'  place  to  vote  will  look  for  qualification  in- 
stead of  names. 


BARNEY  MULLIGAN  THE  FAR-DOWN 
LINEN  PEDDLER  ON  THE  MONEY 
QUESTION. 

' '  Troth  and  indeed  I  would  not  be  talkin '  here 
today  if  it  were  not  for  my  ould  friend,  Nicho- 
las Ryan,  your  statistician.  Nick  said  he  pledg- 
ed his  word. 

"Well,  I  always  have  said  there  are  a  few 
things  a  man  should  not  carelessly  part  with— 
one  of  them  is  his  word  and  the  other  his 
money ;  and  the  next  is  the  friendship  of  the 
ould  woman  and  the  mother.  An'  I'm  tellin' 
ye,  they  are  the  best  frinds  a  man  has  on  this 
earth,  and  that  goes  whether  you're  in  jail  or 
out  of  it. 

"Now,  I  am  not  much  given  to  talk,  for  I  be- 
lieve as  ould  Dean  Swift  did,  that  there  is  no 
teacher  but  Time  that  will  convince.  An'  from 
lookin'  over  some  of  ye,  the  Lord  has  given  ye 
time  enough  to  be  convinced  of  everything  con- 
cerning the  things  here  below. 

"There's  a  lot  of  ye,  that  I  see  here  before 
me,  that  are  somewhat  religiously  inclined,  but 


94  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

from  the  way  ye  so  aisly  separate  yourselves 
from  yer  money,  ye'd  think  it  was  a  plague  sint 
to  you  instead  of  a  blessing. 

"Now,  I  always  had  this  thought  in  mind, 
that  if  your  Government  would  change  the 
stamp  they  have  on  the  dollar  or  the  bill  to 
read,  'When  ye 're  carelessly  partin'  with  me, 
you  are  separatin  yourselves  from  your  best 
f rind ;  it  might  have  a  tindincy  to  make  ye  stop 
and  think  before  you  let  it  go.  But  Barney 
O'Flynn  says  ye  can't  take  it  with  ye  to  the 
grave;  but,  'Barney,'  says  I,  'nayther  can  ye 
tell  how  long  ye  have  to  stop  here. '  That  kind 
of  talk  is  all  right  if  you  were  to  be  sure  of  dy- 
ing young.  But  that's  the  rub! 

"For  whin  you  live  a  few  years  beyond  the 
usual  time,  and  ye 're  without  the  money,  ye '11 
find  ye 're  always  talkin'  to  strangers. 

"Yes,  says  Barney,  answerin',  'but  they  say 
it  is  as  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  go  to  heaven  as 
it  is  for  the  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  the 
needle. '  '  That,  Barney,  is  figuratively  speakin', 
says  I,  for  it's  just  as  aisy  for  some  min  to  be 
rich  as  it  is  for  others  to  be  broke,  and  we  know 
min  that  are  broke,  and  from  the  way  they 
carried  on  and  so  carelessly  separated  thim- 
selves  from  their  money,  they  surely  should 
have  no  credit  mark  for  it. 

"That  needle  and  camel  story  is  good  enough 
to  tell  at  a  wake. 

"Now,  I  don't  see  why  Ryan  was  set  on  my 
talkin'  to  ye  on  the  money  question,  for  there's 


95 

many  of  ye  that  say  that  I  am  a  tight  wad.  But 
I  say  ye 're  mistaken,  for  I  believe  that  in 
wantin'  for  anything  that  will  be  to  your  good, 
when  ye  have  the  price,  is  as  foolhardy  as  care- 
lessly partin'  with  your  dollar  for  the  things 
that  you  are  not  in  need  of. 

"Now,  there's  lots  of  fun  about  the  money, 
as  well  as  there  is  trouble.  Ould  Martin  Devlin 
came  to  me  one  day  to  buy  a  lot.  'Well,'  said  I, 
'Devlin,  come  in.  Have  you  anyone  with  you?' 
said  I.  'Well,  sir,'  says  Devlin  in  his  jokin' 
way,  '  I  have, '  says  he,  '  two  of  the  best  friends  T 
ever  had,  and  I  'm  between  them  both.  '  Devlin, ' 
says  I,  'you're  dreamin'  or  your  drunk.' 

' '  '  No, '  says  he, '  I  am  nayther. '  And  says  he, 
'Here  they  are.'  Thrusting  his  right  hand  into 
the  pouch  of  the  trousers  and  pullin'  up  a  roll 
of  one  thousand  dollars,  and  thin  down  in  the 
left  pouch  with  the  left,  and  comin'  up  with  an- 
other roll  of  a  thousand ;  '  there  they  are, '  says 
he ;  'the  best  f rinds  a  man  ever  had,'  an'  I  want 
the  lot  I  was  talkin '  to  ye  about — and  there  'tis 
til  ye. 

"Now,  there's  no  isms  in  me  and  I  know  most 
of  ye  have  lived  as  long  as  I  have,  and  the  divil 
a  thing  have  we  ever  seen  comin'  that  would  be 
worth  the  takin'  that  was  brought  about  by  idle 
dreamy  talk  or  blarney.  Under  such  a  plan  of 
Government  as  ye  have  got,  if  ye  managed  it  so 
there  would  be  just  plain  justice  for  every  one 
alike;  divil  a  thing  more  could  any  honest  man 
ask  for.  And  all  the  soft  talk  ye  hear  from  per- 
sons that  have  day  dreams  as  to  how  a  condition 


96  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

could  be  brought  about  through  resolutions  or 
laws  so  that  the  people  could  get  something  of 
value  for  nothing,  is  but  another  one  of  thim 
kind  of  stories  that  ye  hear  at  a  wake.  An'  if 
ye  noticed  the  fellow  that  can  picture  one  of 
thim  kind  of  tales,  so's  to  make  thim  look  as 
though  they  might  be  cashed,  you'll  find  that 
fellow  is  always  broke.  Thim  kind  of  fellows 
are  gifted;  they  can  regulate  an'  tell  how  to 
manage  other  persons'  business,  and  as  to  how 
the  government  should  be  conducted;  but  they 
are  so  busy  lookin'  after  other  persons'  busi- 
ness they  can  find  no  time  to  make  a  success  of 
their  own. 

I  don't  know  what  kind  of  isms  thim  kind  of 
fellows  belong  to;  but  when  we  can  look  back 
over  that  long  road  of  cinturies  that  the  world 
has  passed,  and  when  they  can't  show  a  spot 
or  place  on  the  road  where  a  tale  like  they  ad- 
vocate was  ever  cashed,  I  may  well  say  that 
kind  of  talk  is  all  good  enough  to  entertain  the 
young  folks  with,  but  us  ould  fellows  pay  little 
heed  to  it. 

"Now,  before  I  go  anny  further,  let  me  tell 
ye  a  story  Barney  O'Flynn  tells  of  what  a  man 
gets  for  nothing.  There's  a  chap  that  Barney 
knows,  that's  very  shiftless — never  works  while 
he  can  borrow  a  dollar.  And  how  to  invint  a 
story  to  get  the  dollar  without  the  work,  he 
has  his  brains  as  racked  as  the  president  of  a 


MULLIGAN  "Ox  THE  MONEY"  97 

bank,  figuring  on  how  to  keep  his  depositors 
from  overborrowing. 

"One  day  this  fellow  met  a  man  that  he 
thought  looked  as  aisy  as  a  clergyman,  and  he 
begun  to  unfold  his  tale  of  woe  to  this  man. 
The  tale  was,  that  he'd  worked  for  a  contractor 
at  Hegewisch,  and  that  he  was  coming  to  the 
city  to  get  his  week's  pay.  The  contractor, 
said  he,  was  just  after  being  run  down  by  an 
auto  and  taken  home.  'Now,  says  he,  I  have 
no  money  to  pay  my  way  back  to  Hegewisch  to 
my  family.' 

"  'Well,  well,  well,'  said  this  aisy  lookin' 
gintleman,  'that's  too  bad.  Come  up,'  says  he, 
'to  the  office  with  me,  and  repeat  that  story.' 
He  walked  him  up  seven  flights  of  stairs  to  the 
office,  then  after  repeatin'  the  story,  the  aisy 
lookin'  man  said  to  him  again,  'That's  too  bad, 
too  bad!  But  I  wish  you  all  the  good  luck  in 
the  world,  and  I'm  sorry  for  you.  An'  my 
blessing  go  with  ye ;  but  my  blessing  is  all  that 
I  can  give  ye.' 

"  'My  God,'  says  Barney's  shiftless  frind. 
'Why  in  the  divil  didn't  ye  give  me  that  blessing 
below  on  the  sidewalk?'  And  there  'tis  til  ye, 
and  that's  about  what  any  one  gets  for  nothin'. 

"Now,  thin,  for  another  story  of  Barney's  on 
the  Friendship  question.  Barney  got  stuck  on 
a  horse  trade.  What  vexed  Barney,  was,  that 
there  was  standing  by  an  ould  acquaintance  of 
his.  Barney,  in  tellin'  his  troubles  to  Casey, 
the  blacksmith,  related  the  transaction,  and, 
said  he,  'what  makes  me  sore  is  that  ould  Fitz 


98  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

the  tailor,  a  friend  of  mine,  was  standin'  by, 
and  never  as  much  as  give  me  the  hint.'  'You 
say  ould  Fitz  was  a  friend  of  yours  1'  says 
Casey,  the  blacksmith.  'Well,  Barney,  I  sup- 
pose if  I  was  standin'  there  at  the  time,  you'd 
say  that  I  was  a  frind  of  yours,  too.  Now,  let 
me  tell  ye  something,  Barney.  The  Dutchman, 
your  neighbor,  sinds  his  horse  to  me  to  be  shod. 
You  and  I  are  ould  townies.  Divil  a  think  you  'd 
do  of  sindin'  your  horse  to  my  shop.  Now,  Bar- 
ney,' says  he,  'let  me  tell  you  something.  Whin- 
iver  you  say  a  man  is  a  friend  of  yours,  just 
ask  yourself  what  did  you  ever  do  for  him  that 
makes  you  think  he  is  a  friend  of  yours— and 
there  ye  have  it.' 

"So  ye  can  see  ye  get  neither  money,  nor 
friendship  without  value  received. 

"Now,  thin,  to  finish  on  the  money  question, 
and,  as  Nicholas  Ryan  says,  it's  a  mean  thing 
that  you  can't  find  a  kind  word  for,  if  you  don't 
care  what  you're  sayin'.  Now,  ye  might  be 
that  scrawny  that  even  the  dogs  would  not 
think  it  worth  their  while  to  bark  at  ye.  But, 
if  ye  have  the  money,  thim  that  wouldn't  spit 
on  ye  while  you  are  alive— ye  can  hire  thim  to 
pluck  roses  and  thrim  the  grass  on  your  grave 
and  say  kind  words  of  ye  when  you're  gone. 
And  if  you  were  to  be  in  as  bad  a  predicament 
as  they  tell  of  ould  Lazarus  of  ould,  where 
none  but  the  dogs  would  attind  him,  if  ye  have 
the  money,  ye  can  git  the  highest  scientific  at- 
tindance,  with  the  compliments  of  the  season 
from  every  one.  Ye  can  scowl  at  this,  but  there 
'tis  til  ye.'" 


'  j*3  ,'s\^*-»i' w- ~". *  " 


RYAN  INDUCES  MULLIGAN  TO  CONTINUE 
HIS  DISCOURSE  ON  THE  MONEY  QUES- 
TION. 

Ryan  has  induced  Barney  Mulligan  to  con- 
tinue his  money  discourse  before  the  Sun  Wor- 
shipers' Club  of  McKinley  Park. 

"  'Well,'  said  Mulligan,  'the  next  time  Ryan 
pledges  his  word,  I  hope  it  will  be  for  some- 
thing better  than  to  hear  me  talk  to  ye  on  the 
money  question.' 

' '  Now,  money  is  all  right,  but  if  ye  give  it  to 
a  fool  he  will  make  thistles  grow  where  roses 
only  ought  to  bloom.  This  ould  McKinley  Park 
is  a  fine  sample  of  what  money  well  spent  will 
do.  Dougherty  says  he  remembers  it  when  it 
was  a  race  track.  Well,  if  it  was,  when  I  first 
see  it,  it  was  an  ould  eighty  acre  lot  of  a  cab- 
bage garden;  and  in  the  fall  when  the  cabbage 
stumps  were  decaying,  it  was  no  geranium. 
Now  look  at  it— it's  like  the  story  of  the  Gar- 
den of  Allah.  One  of  the  blessin's  of  your  plan 
of  government  for  public  ownership  of  places 


100  McKENNA's  STORIES 

of  amusement  for  the  young  and  ould.  Things 
done  for  the  people  like  this  is  what  makes 
1'yal  citizens  and  love  for  your  plan  of  govern- 
ment. 

"Ould  Carnagy  and  Rockyfeller  spent  a  lot 
of  money  in  the  way  of  education;  some  of  it 
may  be  good  and  some  of  it  may  be  not — only 
time  will  tell.  I  was  thinkin'  of  this  in  my  trav- 
els up  through  the  Eastern  and  New  England 
states.  In  lookin'  over  the  farms  there,  I  no- 
ticed a  great  change  in  the  population.  Once 
there  lived  on  thim  farms  as  great  an  ould 
race  of  people  as  ever  lived.  They  worked 
hard  and  managed  well.  It  was  their  influence 
that  helped  to  perfect  this  plan  of  government, 
and  as  good  people  ought  to,  they  tried  to  pro- 
vide for  the  future  welfare  of  their  children. 
Their  descindents'  influence  is  much  needed  to 
keep  the  sentimint  for  which  this  plan  of  gov- 
ernment was  intended. 

But  with  all  the  money  spent  by  ould  Rocky- 
fellr  and  Carnagy,  and  others,  on  the  higher 
education,  as  they  call  it,  they  have  educated 
all  the  young  min  and  women  away  from  the 
farms.  The  b'ys  learned  more  how  to  manage 
and  care  for  the  farms  than  any  other  boys  in 
the  world,  and  are  doin'  less  of  it  than  any 
other  boys  in  the  world.  And  so  it  is  true  of 
the  girls;  they  have  learned  more  how  to  care 
for  the  children  and  manage  them  than  any 
other  girls  in  the  world,  and  have  less  of  them 
— and  there  you  have  it.  The  higher  education 


MULLIGAN  STILL,  TALKING  101 

and  one  night  on  the  Great  White  Way  takes  all 
your  taste  away  from  the  farm. 

"But,  as  Lena  Schultz  says,  as  she  view  the 
goin's  on  in  the  cabarets  on  the  Great  White 
Way,  'I  may  never  get  to  where  they  are,'  said 
she;  'but  there's  a  lot  of  thim  that  I  see  will  be 
back  where  I  am  on  the  farm.' 

"Well,  with  the  great  size  of  your  country, 
and  the  spread  of  the  population  and  its  devel- 
opment, what  do  we  find?  Every  one  headin' 
for  the  big  cities ;  there 's  where  the  greatgrand- 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  descendants  of  the 
ould  New  England  farms  are  to  be  found,  some 
engaged  as  separaters,  promoters,  and  mana- 
gers of  the  big  financial  institutions  and  stock 
markets.  Very  few  of  their  names  are  above 
the  doors  of  the  smaller  business ;  but  sorry  it 
is  to  say  the  greater  number  of  them  are  in 
harness,  both  min  and  women  in  the  offices  of 
the  big  concerns,  adding  up  figures,  chasing  the 
adding  machine  and  tickling  the  type  machine, 
with  the  time  clock  starin'  thim  in  the  face 
always.  And  the  pay  that  they  get  and  the 
high  cost  of  rint,  the  smallness  of  the  flat  rooms 
and  the  flat  restrictions,  all  go  to  help  Ryan 
prove  with  his  statistics  that  the  race  is  on  the 
decline.  And  in  your  travels  around  the  city 
flat  buildings,  you  will  hear  more  of  the  songs 
of  the  canary,  the  squeak  of  the  parrot  and  the 
bark  of  the  poodle  than  you  will  of  the  sweet 
cry  of  the  baby  boys  or  girls,  and  there  'tis  till 
ye.  And  if  that  thing  keeps  up,  an'  it's  goin' 


102  McKENNA's  STORIES 

fast,  some  of  the  races  that  first  settled  in  this 
country  and  helped  to  make  it,  and  are  now 
most  needed  to  help  continue  it,  will  be  as 
scarce  as  is  the  American  Buffalo  or  Indian; 
Ryan  with  his  statistics  proves  this. 

"They  tell  a  story  that  things  were  going 
along  on  these  lines  once  in  Ireland — well,  Dan- 
iel 0  'Connell  did  so  many  wonderful  things,  he 
was  like  our  Teddy  when  he  said  things,  he 
made  them  look  up  whether  they  liked  it  or  not. 
I  often  thought  Teddy  and  0  'Connell  was  of  the 
same  mind  on  some  things,  for  if  you  remim- 
ber  when  Teddy  was  President,  he  didn't  over- 
look this  important  fact,  and  the  man  with  the 
long  family  was  always  welcome  where  Teddy 
was;  and  especially  one  with  a  good  ould  Yan- 
kee name.  Well,  as  I  say,  at  the  time,  the  Irish 
would  not  be  surprised  to  learn  of  anything 
0 'Connell  might  do.  Signs  on  it,  some  laddie 
buck  composed  a  ballad  showin'  where  0 'Con- 
nell had  invinted  a  machine  that  would  make 
children  by  steam,  an'  it  began  to  be  sung  about 
the  country  places.  Well,  an  ould  Irish  woman 
that  heard  it,  became  very  vexed,  an '  she  added 
to  the  verses : 

"  'I  am  an  ould  woman  of  three  score  and 

twenty ; 
Not  a  tooth  in  my  head  is  there  to  be  seen. ' 

"Well,  ye  Irish  know  the  balance  of  it.  Divil 
the  further  word  was  necessary ;  the  population 
of  Ireland  so  increased  in  the  next  ten  years 
that  they  had  to  emigrate  all  over  the  world  to 


MULLIGAN  STILL  TALKING  103 

find  room  for  them.  Now,  if  some  one  could 
compose  a  ballad  that  would  go  with  Teddy's 
advice,  why  couldn't  the  same  thing  be  done 
here?  "We  can't  afford  to  let  this  race  die  out; 
and  I  might  add  some  of  the  young  risin'  gen- 
eration of  the  Irish  here  might  begin  rehearsin' 
that  ould  ballad,  for  they're  slippin'  fast. 

"Education  is  all  right.  Ryan  is  as  full  of 
it  as  is  a  pumpkin  full  of  seeds.  But  he  is  so 
busy  after  it  that  he  lets  the  money  get  by  him. 
Old  Martin  Killroy,  a  towney  of  Ryan's  came 
to  this  country  about  the  same  time  Ryan  did. 
Ould  Killroy  started  in  peddling  and  buying 
potatoes  and  cow  jobbin'.  He  can  tell  the 
weight  of  a  cow  and  the  amount  of  milk  that 
she'll  give  a  block  away.  He's  got  all  kinds  of 
money  and  flat  buildings,  and  divil  the  further 
he  ever  went  with  his  pen  than  to  make  his 
cross.  An'  he  can  do  that  as  scientifically  as 
Michael  Angelo  could  paint  a  picture;  but  the 
cross  is  as  far  as  he  ever  got  in  penmanship. 

"Now,  Ryan,  with  all  his  education,  when  he 
was  buying  a  cow  or  storin'  up  his  potatoes  for 
the  winter,  had  to  go  to  ould  Killroy  for  advice. 
There  'tis  till  ye,  statistics  against  the  bucksaw 
cross.  Education  is  something  that  you  learn 
that  is  worth  while  and  that  you  can  make  a 
success  of.  Billy  Sunday  makes  Religion  pay 
—now  that's  education  for  him!  Any  vocation 
that  you're  at  that  you  are  doing  well— that's 
your  job.  So  be  continted,  for  the  kind  of  a 
person  that  is  doin'  well  in  any  work,  trade  or 
business,  and  is  always  discontinted  with  things 


104  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

and  talks  of  doing  something  else — he's  always 
a  failure. 

"Now,  I  will  say  a  word  to  ye  on  the  Irish 
question — there  is  so  much  being  said  about  it. 
Now,  there  are  some  deeds  that  have  been  done 
that  you  can't  recall,  and  the  same  is  true  with 
words  expressed.  When  Christ  said,  'Ye  that 
are  not  guilty  cast  the  first  stone.'  These 
words  have  kept  many  a  stone  in  its  place  on 
the  stone  pile.  When  Robert  Emmet  said,  'Let 
not  my  epitaph  be  written  until  my  country 
takes  her  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth, ' 
there's  the  monkey  wrench  in  the  machinery 
that  keeps  the  Irish  question  alive.  The  Irish 
people  are  not  mechanically  made,  they  don't 
all  think  alike,  any  more  than  any  other  intelli- 
gent race.  But  whatever  way  they  do  think, 
they  ain't  afraid  to  tell  it.  And  it  don't  make 
any  difference  what  way  they  view  the  religious 
question,  whether  they're  with  the  Pope  or 
against  him;  whenever  they  stand  up  to  fight 
for  any  cause  they  think  is  right,  whether  in 
parliament  or  on  the  battle  field,  you  don't 
have  to  put  signs  on  them  to  let  the  passers  by 
know  what  race  of  men  they  are— their  actions 
speak  louder  than  words  or  sisrns.  But  I'm 
tellin'  ye,  and  I  have  traveled  all  over  England, 
Ireland,  Scotland  and  Wales — and  most  of  the 
United  States,  that  65  per  cent  of  the  Irish  men. 
women  and  children,  not  only  in  Ireland,  but 
everywhere  I  find  them  have  that  sentiment  of 
Emmett  livin'  inside  of  them.  All  yer  talk  and 
all  yer  resolutions  and  conventions  in  the  world 


MULLIGAN  STILL  TALKING  105 

wouldn't  change  that  sentiment,  or  settle  the 
Irish  question  until  whatever  time  Emmett's 
epitaph  will  be  written. 

"It's  not  a  relligious  question — it's  not  a 
Catholic  question,  for  them  sentiments  of  Em- 
mett  was  spoken  by  a  Protestant;  and  ye  know 
how  hard  it  would  be  to  change  the  Catholic  of 
Ireland  on  the  religious  views.  Well,  sir,  all 
the  Catholic  priests  in  the  world  couldn't 
change  that  65  per  cent  of  the  Irish  from  Em- 
mett's sentiments;  and  there's  twenty  per  cent 
more  of  them,  if  you  vex  them,  are  just  of  the 
same  frame  of  mind. 

"And  my  experience  is  of  lay  people  that 
have  idle  time  enough  to  waste  on  religious  sub- 
jects, generally  know  as  much  about  it  as  my 
ould  friend  Killroy  does  about  penmanship. 
It's  not  hatred  against  the  English  people,  but 
those  of  the  Irish  that  have  these  sintiments  in 
them  would  sooner  live  and  die  in  want  than 
forsake  these  sentiments  of  Emmett's;  and  the 
people  of  the  Irish  race  all  over  the  world  that 
have  these  sentiments  will  never  rebel  against 
England,  to  become  the  dependents  of  any  other 
nation,  and  England  knows  that  well.  But 
wherever  a  chance  presents  itself  where  there 
is  a  hope  to  write  Emmett's  epitaph — they'll  be 
there.  There's  the  question  there  for  ye  now, 
as  good  as  if  you  read  ten  volumes  of  Ryan's 
statistics  tryin'  to  explain  it.  There  is  but  one 
way,  and  the  Government  knows  it  well',  and  it's 
a  waste  of  time  to  try  any  other  solution. 


106  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


LAMENTATIONS  OF  THE  PESSIMIST  MEMBERS  OF 
THE  FIFTH  WARD  REPUBLICAN  CLUB. 

We've  heard  preachers  preaching, 

We've  heard  teachers  teaching, 

Politicians  we've  heard  screeching — 

Tears  seemed  to  drop  with  every  word  they  said. 

Of  our  ills  they  seem  to  worry, 

And  pretended  in  a  hurry 

To  bring  about  conditions,  as  they  said, 

That  would  keep  the  rich  and  poor 
From  all  future  troubles  sure; 
But  when  the  day  would  come 
They  never  said. 

To  us  that  sounds  like  bunk, 

So  just  'hand  us  down  a  chunk 

Of  something  while  we're  living,  as  'tis  said; 

For  when  we're  down  below  the  clover 

All  our  wants  will  then  be  over. 

Give  us  something  while  we're  living. 

We'll  be  a  long  time  dead. 

— John  J.  McKenna. 


THE  EAGLE  SOCIETY'S  PICNIC  HAS  IT'S 
EFFECT  ON  MC'S  ORATORS.  HE  TELLS 
HIS  OWN  STORY. 

I  am  stalled.  The  Eagle  Society  of  Brighton 
gave  a  picnic  this  week;  they  appointed  a  com- 
mittee on  entertainment,  consisting  of  all  the 
leading  buffet  owners  of  Brighton  to  do  the  job. 
Now,  whether  they  did  it  intentionally  or  not, 
I  don't  know,  but  there  will  be  no  meeting  of 
the  Sun  Worshipers'  Club  this  week;  and  my 
Barneys,  old  Dougherty,  Devlin,  McManus,  Pat 
Price,  and  all  the  others  were  taken  away  with 
the  Eagles  in  their  flight  to  some  picnic  ground, 
somewhere  between  the  Willow  Springs  and  the 
town  of  Lemont. 

Whether  the  country  air  or  something  else 
disturbed  their  digestion,  I  don't  know;  but 
none  of  them  has  shown  up  since  they  left  the 
Brighton  on  the  auto  truck  for  the  Eagles' 
picnic. 

Nicholas  Ryan,  the  statistician,  is  the  only 
total  abstainer  I  have  in  the  bunch.  Ryan  says 
he  is  not  a  prohibitionist,  but  he  is  so  busy  on 
statistics  that  he  has  no  time  for  the  drink- 
Ryan  is  here  now — and  he  tells  me  that  he  saw 
them  off;  "they  were  all  in  high  glee,"  said  he, 
as  they  left.  But  when  I  looked  at  that  enter- 


108  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

tainment  committee  and  saw  the  auto  truck, 
with  its  commissary  department,  and  the  load 
that  was  on  it,  I  pointed  to  it  and  said  to  the 
two  Barneys,  "I  see  your  finish  there." 

11  They  're  gone  off  in  high  glee,"  says  Ryan, 
"but  they'll  come  back  holding  up  their  con- 
science, and  it  will  take  the  ould  woman  two 
weeks  feeding  them  on  beef  tea  and  sedlitz 
powders  to  revive  them. ' '  I  am  no  prohibition- 
ist, and  don 't  care  if  a  man  takes  a  drink,  if  he 
knows  how  to  take  it.  But  there  are  many  of 
thim  that  whin  they  do  take  a  drink,  they  take 
a  camel's  feed.  Then  they're  sick  from  it  and 
while  they're  sick,  if  they  had  a  chance  to  vote 
on  the  question  they'd  stop  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  liquor  and  privint  every  other  per- 
son that  could  enjoy  a  sup  from  having  it.  And 
thim  same  buckos,  just  as  soon  as  they  recover 
from  its  effects,  they  would  vote  again  for  it 
and  cry  out  for  personal  liberty.  There  is  a  lot 
of  thim  that  I  know  that  are  always  sick  for  it 
or  from  it — so  there  you  are,"  says  Ryan. 

The  stories  that  I  have  been  telling  you  are 
tales  such  as  are  told  at  wakes  and  are  linked 
together  where  they  fit  in  to  make  a  short  story 
to  interest  persons  who  have  attended  wakes, 
and  who  know  how  many  wonderful  tales  are 
told  concerning  everything  that  has  ever  hap- 
pened in  any  part  of  the  world,  either  real  or 
imaginary;  and  this  is  especially  so  of  a  good 
old-fashioned  wake,  where,  as  Ryan  says,  "a 


THE  EAGLE  PICNIC  109 

little  sup  is  supplied  to  keep  the  mourners  and 
friends  awake  while  they  attind  the  wake. ' ' 

Now,  then,  for  a  little  political  tale  or  two. 
Every  one  that  is  on  to  the  political  game  knows 
that  it  is  a  business  as  well  managed  as  is  any 
other  business,  and  it  doesn't  grow  on  bushes. 
Its  plans  are  well  thought  out  by  men  visible 
and  invisible,  who  know  how  to  do  things  and 
manage  all  kinds  of  business.  For  you  know 
that  in  order  for  all  kinds  of  business  to  suc- 
ceed, the  government  part  must  first  be  safe, 
and  don't  think  that  this  is  ever  overlooked. 
Political  organizations,  from  top  to  bottom, 
from  the  Chairman  of  the  National  Committee 
or  Managing  Body,  down  to  the  precinct  cap- 
tain, is  the  highest  efficient  organization  in  the 
country.  This  goes  for  both  the  principal  or- 
ganizations of  the  country. 

They  have  more  close  at  hand  information 
concerning  everybody  and  everybody's  busi- 
ness, customs,  habits,  likes,  dislikes  and  preju- 
dices than  any  organization  in  the  country. 
That's  their  business.  Police  departments,  de- 
tective agencies,  or  any  other  source  of  organi- 
zation have  not — nor  can  they  get  in  so  close 
a  touch  with  the  people  as  a  political  organiza- 
tion. 

Talk  about  efficiency  in  organization ;  the  old- 
fashioned  precinct  captain  knew  and  watched 
365  days  of  the  year,  every  person  in  his  pre- 
cinct, knew  with  whom  he  banked;  whether  he 
needed  money;  knew  where  he  borrowed;  and 


110  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

knew  who  held  the  mortgage;  knew  where  he 
was  employed  and  by  whom,  and  how  he  could 
be  reached  if  it  became  necessary.  Not  a  point 
was  overlooked.  He  knew  every  one  in  his  pre- 
cinct that  was  a  natural  born  Democrat  or  Re- 
publican; he  knew  the  one  that  did  not  need 
watching  or  time  to  be  spent  working  on. 

But  here's  the  joke;  and  the  point  I  want  to 
explain :  there  is  never  a  political  meeting  held 
or  called  for  in  any  place  under  the  call  of  the 
party  organization  but  that  everything  of  im- 
portance to  be  done  is  well  in  hand,  and  the 
most  times  the  meetings  are  but  matters  of 
form.  At  all  such  meetings  85  per  cent  of  those 
who  attend  are  in  perfect  accord  with  orders 
as  they  come  down  from  headquarters — (ex- 
cept)— and  here  is  the  great  cause  of  fun— The 
fellow  who  reads  the  circular  and  never  reads 
between  the  lines,  be  it  for  a  regular  meeting 
or  a  mass  meeting,  it  is  all  the  same ;  the  meet- 
ing is  to  carry  out  some  order  in  which  they  are 
all  interested.  It's  mechanical  to  the  85  per 
cent,  and  they  want  to  execute  the  order  as 
quickly  as  possible  in  order  to  get  back  to  their 
game  of  66,  penochle,  or  something  else.  But 
the  friend  of  the  people  and  old  Mr.  Enquiry 
come  into  the  meeting.  They  think  that  the 
others  are  there,  like  themselves,  to  find  fault 
and  show  their  ability  as  parliamentarians,  etc. 
Well,  the  first  thing  they  observe — the  meeting 
goes  on  without  much  attention  to  Roberts' 
Rules  of  Order;  then  come  the  questions  from 


THE  EAGLE  PICNIC  111 

Mr.  Friend  of  the  people  and  old  Mr.  Enquiry 
on  points  of  order,  questions  of  information; 
very  high  words  concerning  the  Constitution  of 
the  Country ;  the  rights  of  an  American  citizen, 
and  the  cry  of  "gag  rule,"  "machines,"  etc. 

This  all  comes  from  the  fact  that  old  Mr. 
Friend  of  the  people  and  old  Mr.  Enquiry  and 
their  parliamentarian  friends  are  not  on  to  the 
political  game;  and  it  is  as  hard  for  them  to 
get  in  right,  as  Ryan  says  it  is  to  get  the  privi- 
lege of  riding  the  goat  at  a  Masonic  lodge.  But 
this  dear  old  Friend  of  the  People  and  old  Mr. 
Enquiry  never  get  on.  In  every  community 
they  go  to — the  same  gag  rule  as  they  think 
prevails,  and  they  never  get  it  through  their 
heads  that  it  is  a  political  organization  where 
everything  is  prearranged  and  planned.  Politi- 
cians are  taking  no  chances ;  but  the  Friend  of 
the  People  and  old  Mr.  Enquiry  never  see  the 
point,  and  they  are  always  making  enemies,  and 
they  don't  know  why — and  they  never  will. 

On  the  North  Side,  where  John  Dougherty's 
rules  of  order  were  substituted  for  Roberts' 
rules,  at  a  meeting  called  for  on  a  very  hot 
night ;  a  meeting  ordered  from  headquarters  to 
select  delegates,  the  perspiration  was  just  run- 
ning down  the  foreheads  of  the  people.  *  *  Quick 
job,"  said  they  all,  "and  let's  get  out." 

Now  this  was  one  of  them  kind  of  meetings 
where  97  per  cent  of  the  audience  were  regu- 
lars ;  about  3  per  cent  strangers,  together  with 
the  Friend  of  the  People  and  old  Mr.  Enquiry. 


112  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

Well,  Koberts'  Rules  were  discarded;  John 
Dougherty 's  Rules  were  working  and  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  the  organization.  It  was  quick 
work,  but  to  the  surprise  of  everybody  the  Old 
Friend  of  the  People,  seconded  by  old  Mr.  En- 
quiry, commenced  on  his  point  of  order  and 
question  of  information.  Well,  the  result  was 
that  a  few  of  the  friends  of  the  people  were 
bodily  thrown  through  the  back  window,  taking 
with  them  sash  and  blinds  down  into  the  alley. 
" There,"  said  Dougherty,  as  he  saw  them  go- 
ing through  the  window,  "your  point  is  well 
directed." 

Don't  stop  them,"  said  Tony  Lynch;  it's  the 
first  thing  I've  seen  going  down  since  the  war 
began. ' ' 

Here  is  another  story  of  a  meeting  where  a 
well  known  West  Side  politician  presided.  He 
was  afraid  of  no  one ;  a  good  emergency  chair- 
man ;  came  from  a  sick  bed  to  preside,  to  insure 
harmony.  Delegates  were  to  be  selected.  He 
had  the  reputation  of  discarding  Roberts'  Rules 
of  Order  and  using  Murphy's  Rules  of  Order. 
As  a  gavel,  he  used  a  large  beer  mallet,  and 
never  wasted  time  on  but  the  one  side  of  a  ques- 
tion. If  he  was  in  favor  of  it,  he  would  put  the 
question:  "All  in  favor,  say  Aye,"  and  down 
came  the  gavel  fast  and  hard,  at  the  same  time 
saying,  "The  ayes  seem  to  have  it."  And  so, 
on  subjects  he  did  not  favor,  he  always  put  the 
question,  "All  opposed  to  this  motion  say 


THE  EAGLE  PICNIC  113 

Aye."  And  down  came  the  gavel  quick  and 
hard  with  the  same  "the  ayes  seem  to  have  it." 

Now,  this  ruling  was  just  right  for  the  regu- 
lars—there being  no  romance'  in  a  political 
meeting  for  them.  Well,  this  meeting  was  about 
97  per  cent  all  one  way,  and  it  was  a  very  hot 
night,  a  small  hall,  and  'twas  no  picnic  to  be 
in  there  any  longer  than  necessary. 

To  the  surprise  of  every  one,  a  few  of  the 
Friends  of  the  People  in  the  back  of  the  hall  be- 
gan on  points  of  order  and  points  of  informa- 
tion, and  "Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  a  resolution 
to  present."  This  was  annoying  to  the  Chair 
and  every  one  else,  except  the  few.  But  old  Mr. 
Enquiry  kept  continuously  insisting  upon  pre- 
senting his  resolution.  Well,  when  all  the  im- 
portant business  was  completed,  the  Chair  said, 
"Will  the  gentleman  with  the  resolution  please 
step  up  to  the  platform  with  his  resolution?" 
Then  the  Chair  stepped  forward  and  took  the 
resolution.  He  said  to  the  Friend  of  the  Peo- 
ple, "I  left  a  sick  bed  to  preside  at  t^is  meeting1. 
You  just  worried  every  one  to  death  with  your 
resolutions  and  points  of  information  and 
points  of  order,  so  just  take  this — Hitting 
him  on  the  head  with  the  beer  mallet — go  now, 
sit  down,  and  content  yourself. ' '  But  he  didn  't ; 
the  mallet  had  put  him  to  sleep;  he  had  to  be 
carried  out  to  the  corner  saloon  and  given  a  sup 
to  revive  him.  But  as  he  was  going,  Ryan  said, 
"Murphys  Rules  of  Order  are  still  working." 

The  moral  of  this  whole  thing  is,  that  if  you 
are  not  a  party  to  and  interested  in  either  of 


114  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

the  political  organizations,  don't  think  that  you 
just  dropped  into  a  chance  public  meeting,  for 
you  '11  find  that  every  thing  has  been  well  prear- 
ranged, and  that  abusing  the  Rules  of  Order 
and  the  management  is  not  going  to  get  you 
anything  of  value.  For,  as  Ryan  says,  "it  is 
better  and  safer  for  you  to  be  home  with  the 
ould  woman,  enjoying  a  pint  of  beer,  than  it  is 
to  be  arguing  with  Murphy  on  a  'pint'  of  or- 
der." 


RYAN   ON   PRESS  AND   POLITICS. 

"Well,  McKenna,"  said  Ryan,  "I  am  right 
for  once.  I  told  you  whin  I  saw  your  orators 
off  on  that  auto  truck  for  the  Eagles  picnic, 
with  that  load  of  wet  goods  they  had  in  the  com- 
missary department.  Whin  I  saw  that  and  the 
entertainment  committee,  said  I  to  the  two  Bar- 
neys, 'There's  your  finish'— and  so  it  was.  If 
you  had  got  thim  the  night  of  the  picnic,  when 
the  angel's  food — as  the  committee  called  it — 
was  working  in  thim,  ye  could  have  got  speeches 
galore  from  thim  on  any  subject.  But  since  the 
'angel's  food'  died  out,  divil  a  whimper  ye  can 
get  from  any  of  thim.  And  until  such  time  as 
they  recover  from  the  effect  of  the  'angel's 
food'  ye '11  not  get  their  thoughts  away  from 
ice  water  long  enough  to  think  of  anything 
worth  the  hearing.  And,  as  Barney  Mulligan 
says,  '  there  'tis  til  ye. ' 

"Well  McKenna,  ye  can  talk  as  ye  may  about 
political  organization,  but  let  me  tell  ye,  if  ye 
haven't  got  the  tide  of  public  opinion  comin' 
your  way,  your  greatest  organization  will  avail 
ye  nothing,  for  I  have  seen — and  I  have  sta- 


116  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

tistics  to  show,  that  as  great  a  political  organi- 
zation as  ever  existed,  whin  workin'  against 
public  opinion,  blew  up  over  night. 

"I  have  seen  it  when  the  tide  of  public  opin- 
ion was  favorable  at  some  of  the  elections,  whin 
we  had  to  go  to  the  police  station  to  get  the  as- 
sistance of  the  police  to  keep  thim  from  over- 
crowding the  hall;  and  I  have  seen  it  whin  we 
were  working  against  the  tide  of  public  opin- 
ion with  the  greatest  organization  that  could  be 
perfected,  and  with  the  funds  to  back  it  up.  We 
might  shoot  off  all  the  fireworks  in  town  and 
have  the  bands  playing,  give  them  cabaret 
shows  and  free  drinks,  and  yet  the  divil  the  one 
outside  of  a  regular  would  come  to  the  meeting. 

"And,  as  Barney  O'Flynn  says,  'it's  as  hard 
to  carry  on  a  political  organization  without  the 
aid  of  the  press,  as  it  is  to  run  his  old  Ford 
with  water  in  the  carbureter.  The  press  has 
become  a  wonderful  institution.  It  is  not  that 
which  is  really  transpiring  that  makes  it  won- 
derful, but  it's  the  things  that  the  press  edu- 
cates the  people  to  believe,  are  going  on.  If  the 
press  says  your  doin'  well,  everybody  says  so 
and  thinks  so.  But  when  the  press  doesn't  men- 
tion your  good  deeds  at  all,  but  shows  up  only 
your  mistakes — an,  as  Barney  says,  'with  the 
best  of  us,  they're  many— thin,  says  he,  'what's 
the  use  of  your  organization  and  the  good  work 
it's  doin',  for,  like  the  man  with  his  religion  in 
his  wife's  name,  the  divil  the  wan  outside  of 
himself  and  the  wife  knows  anything  about  it.' 


PBESS  AND  POLITICS  117 

And,  as  Barney  says,  'to  show  you  the  wonder- 
ful power  of  the  press  of  today,  it  works,'  says 
he,  'like  Mrs.  Eddy's  Christian  Science  plan,' 
and  I  say  it's  not  what  things  are,  but  what 
your  mind's  educated  up  to  believe  they  are. 
For,  as  Barney  O'Flynn  says,  'if  you  are  sick 
and  your  mind  is  educated  to  believe  you  are 
well,  how  do  you  know  that  you  are  sick ! '  And 
now,  here  is  an  example  for  you : 

"I  met  seven  of  the  Sun  Worshipers'  Club 
going  down  the  street  one  fine  day.  They  all 
had  up  their  umbrellas  as  they  were  passing 
me  by.  When  I  at  last  stopped  two  of  thim, 
said  I  to  thim,  'why  all  this  umbrella  business 
today?  "Tis  nayther  too  warm,  nor  is  it  rain- 
in','  says  I. 

"  'You  are  mistaken,'  said  the  two, '  'tis  pour- 
ing down  rain!' 

"  'You're  crazy,  man,'  says  I. 

"  'We  are  not,'  says  they;  'we  both  read  it  in 
the  paper  before  we  left  the  house.' 

"  'Well,'  said  I,  'put  your  hand  from  be- 
neath your  umbrella  and  feel  for  yourself.' 

"  'Begorra,'  says  one  of  thim  to  the  other, 
'he  is  right— it's  not  raining  a  dhrop. 

"  'Well,  what  do  ye  think  of  that?  And  we 
read  it  in  the  paper  before  leaving  the  house 
that  it  was  pouring  down,  and  that  it  would 
continue  to  do  so  all  day.  Well,  well,  do  ye 
mind  that.' 

"But  what  was  the  good  of  all  this?  The 
other  five  went  ahead  with  their  umbrellas  up. 


118  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

and  the  divil  a  one  could  convince  thim,  after 
what  they  read  in  the  paper,  but  that  it  was 
raining,  and  that  it  would  continue  that  way  all 
day.  And,  ye  see,  there  was  the  tide  of  public 
opinon,  and  that's  just  thrue  with  the  work  of 
your  organization;  ye  reach  about  two  out  of 
sivin,  an'  ye  work  overtime  doin'  it.  Where, 
if  ye  had  the  co-operation  of  the  press,  ye  might 
sleep  in  bed  until  10  A.  M.  and  git  results.  With- 
out the  press  you're  doin'  overtime,  and  nine 
times  out  of  tin,  your  work  is  all  in  vain.  Ye 
may  beat  it  once  in  a  while,  as  there  are  excep- 
tions to  every  rule.  But  with  my  statistics," 
said  Ryan,  "I  can  show  you  your  finish— you 
and  your  organization,  without  the  assistance 
of  the  press. 

"Now,  thin,  for  a  story,  and  I  will  finish," 
says  Ryan.  And  this  is  the  story  that  is  fa- 
miliar to  all  politicians,  and  it  has  happened 
and  will  happen  again  in  most  any  community. 

Now,  here  it  is : 

' '  This  man  I  am  going  to  tell  you  of  is  Charlie 
Whiteside.  He  is  developing  a  bee  in  his  bon- 
net to  become  a  member  of  the  Legislature.  So 
for  the  year  he  and  the  wife  are  seen  at  all  the 
tay  parties,  church  affairs,  and  social  functions 
in  the  community.  Well,  the  end  of  it  all,  he 
and  the  wife  have  whispered  to  all  his  friends 
of  his  intention,  and  have  asked  thim  for  their 
support. 

"But  no  matter  how  hard  you  labor,  and  all 
the  things  else  you  do,  you  are  likely  to  have 


PRESS  AND  POLITICS  119 

opposition,  and  in  this  case  it's  no  exception. 
Now,  thin,  for  a  public  meeting  to  launch  his 
candidacy.  Well,  this  the  practical  politician 
in  his  immediate  neighborhood  agrees  to  man- 
age for  him.  The  night  comes;  bills  are  dis- 
tributed, calling  for  the  mass  meeting.  Now, 
everything  is  prearranged  and  planned — as 
they  think.  Now  for  a  quick  job,  says  the  poli- 
tician. The  meeting  is  well  attended — about 
200  prisint.  It  is  safe  to  say,  with  Charlie's 
wife's  relations  and  f rinds,  98  per  cint  of  all 
prisint  are  personally  invited  frinds— the  other 
2  per  cint  being  just  a  few  strangers  who  read 
the  dodgers  announcing  the  meetin',  and  which 
read,  '  all  are  invited. ' 

"But  as  few  as  they  are,  some  of  thim  are  of 
an  inquisitive  turn  of  the  mind,  and  there's  al- 
ways some  laddybuck  prisint  from  the  opposite 
side  in  all  political  meetings,  rubbering  and 
waiting,  wishing  and  looking  for  some  bad  news. 
Now,  one  of  Charlie 's  friends,  who  is  appointed 
for  the  purpose,  arises  and  moves  that  Sam 
Snow  be  the  temporary  chairman  of  the  meet- 
ing. The  motion  prevails.  Sam  calls  the  meet- 
ing to  order  and  calls  for  a  secretary;  another 
prearranged  person  is  selected  as  Secretary; 
without  much  ado  for  any  of  Roberts '  Rules  of 
Order;  when  suddenly,  from  somewhere  in  the 
back  of  the  hall  is  heard  the  cry,  'Mr.  Chair- 
man.' 

''Then  says  the  Enquirer,  'Are  you  not  con- 
ducting this  meeting  under  a  somewhat  kind  of 


120  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

gag  rule?'  Now  every  one  is  excited;  every- 
body is  supposed  to  be  Charlie's  friend — and 
such  a  question  to  be  asked ! 

"  'Well,'  said  another  one  of  the  strangers, 
'are  there  not  other  persons  that  might  be  can- 
didates if  they  had  an  opportunity  ?  What  kind 
of  a  one  man's  meeting  is  this,  anyhow?'  Now 
the  women  folks  are  excited.  Well,  Charlie  is 
hurriedly  brought  forth,  and  commences  his  ad- 
dress. 

"During  his  remarks  the  laddybuck  from  the 
opposition  jumps  up  and  asks  Charlie  'How 
about  the  Widow  Brown's  children?'  Charlie 
is  stung,  but  replies,  'well,  what  about  them?' 

"  'Well,  that's  what  we  want  to  know,'  says 
the  laddybuck.  This  is  more  than  Charlie's  en- 
thusiastic friends  can  stand.  And,  with  a 
punch,  down  goes  the  laddybuck  that  made  the 
inquiry.  Out  and  down  the  front  stairs  he 
goes,  with  several  of  Charlie 's  friends  punching 
and  kicking  him. 

"Now,  it's  all  excitement;  the  job  is  finished. 
The  meeting  adjourns,  with  everybody's  mind 
on  the  Widow  Brown's  children;  nobody  seems 
to  know  them.  The  next  day  the  papers  report 
a  disorderly  meeting,  where  Charlie  Whiteside 
was  proposed  as  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  that  questions  were  asked  at  the  meet- 
ing concerning  the  Widow  Brown's  children, 
which  caused  a  fight. 

"Well,  you  see,  the  Widow  Brown's  children 
was  the  word  that  caught  the  tide  of  public 


PRESS  AND  POLITICS  121 

opinion,  and  the  press  report  did  the  balance. 
Now,  Charlie  had  98  per  cent  of  his  personal 
friends  at  the  meeting ;  but  if  he  did,  there  were 
several  thousand  persons  in  his  district  who 
had  never  heard  of  Charlie.  But  now  they  all 
heard  of  the  fight  at  the  meeting,  and  of  the 
Widow  Bown's  children.  At  the  primary  elec- 
tion Charlie  is  snowed  under.  And  on  this 
night  everybody  is  inquiring  about  'the  Widow 
Brown's  children';  they'll  never  be  found,  but 
Charlie  is  defeated.  For  the  balance  of  his 
days  Charlie  will  be  kept  busy  explaining  away 
the  story  of  the  Widow  Brown  and  her  children. 
He  can  never  do  this,  for  the  reason  there  is  no 
such  widow  or  children  in  his  district. ' ' 

The  moral:  "The  right  word  at  the  right 
time  to  get  the  tide  of  public  opinion,  then  the 
aid  of  the  press."  This  makes  it  aisy  sailing 
for  the  organization  and  the  politician.  '  And 
without  this,  as  Barney  Mulligan  says,  "you 
had  better  stick  to  some  other  business." 


122  MCKENNA'S  STOKIES 


All  the  world  is  after  money, 

What's  the  use! 
The  way  the  Lord  had  made  us 

What's  the  use! 

One  poor  stomach  and  one  poor  brain 
To  go  against  tlie  money  game, 

So  what's  the  use! 

Think  of  money  stacked  mountains  high, 
And  then  to  think  how  soon  we  die, 

So  what's  the  use! 

Think  with  money  what  you  could  buy, 

So  what's  the  use! 

Think  of  Solomon  of  old,  if  the  story's  true 
And  Brigham  Young  and  what  they  had  to  do, 

Then  what's  the  use! 

Man  was  made  for  pleasures  few, 
Laws  have  been  made  to  stop  them  too, 

So  what's  the  use! 

We  think  that  we  will  quit  the  chase; 
Let  some  other  sucker  set  the  pace 
For  in  the  end  we  all  reach  the  same  old  place. 

So  what's  the  use! 

— John  J.  McKenna. 


PAT    PRICE    AND    BARNEY    O'FLYNN    ON 
THE  GOOD  OLD  DAYS  IN  POLITICS. 

"Well,  Price,"  says  Barney  O'Flynn,  "I  am 
glad  the  park  season  is  over.  My  old  friend 
Nicholas  Ryan  is  as  full  of  statistics  as  a  bal- 
loon is  full  of  gas.  If  statistics  were  conclusive 
proof,  then  Ryan  would  shut  off  all  arguments. 
For  he  is  there  with  his  documentary  evidence, 
as  he  calls  it,  on  every  subject,  but  still  he  does 
not  convince.  We  don't  all  see  through  the 
same  glass,  and  there  is  the  rub. 

"Now,  for  instance,  for  /the  one-half  of  thim 
that  vote  the  Democratic  Ticket  and  the  one- 
half  of  thim  that  vote  the  Republican  Ticket, 
all  the  statistics  and  all  the  speech-making  in 
the  world  wouldn  't  change  their  way  of  thinkin ' 
and  votin'.  It's  born  in  thim  and  they're  proud 
of  it  and  are  contented.  And  to  present  argu- 
ment or  statistics  to  them,  only  makes  them 
the  more  steadfast  in  what  they  are.  Men  may 
go  wrong,  say  they,  but  our  party  never.  They 
are  the  kind  you  call  the  black  Republicans  and 
Copperhead  Democrats.  Now,  I  told  Ryan,  if 
he  wants  to  know  when  those  fellows  are  going 


124  McKENNA's  STORIES 

to  quit  votin'  their  party  ticket,  he  will  have 
to  go  to  the  graveyard  for  his  statistics.  And 
there  ye  have  it. 

"Says  Ryan,  'is  this  not  ignorance?'  No, 
says  I.  It's  a  gift  just  the  same  as  singing  is. 
And  you  with  your  pessimistic,  two  and  two 
make  four  statistics,  who  is  never  satisfied,  and 
who  has  never  a  certainty  in  anything,  don't 
know  anything  of  this  gift.  Says  I  to  him,  your 
old  brain  is  on  a  swivel,  like  the  weather  cock, 
and  you  have  no  fixed  opinon  on  anything.  He 
lays  awake  nights  wishing  for  the  bad  to  come, 
that  might  change  his  mind  tomorrow  from 
what  it  is  today. 

"Well,  sir,  Price,  there's  not  much  life  in 
the  Primaries  of  today  as  compared  with  thim 
of  the  past. 

I  am  reminded  of  one  of  thim  old-fashioned 
Primary  Elections  whin  there  were  no  saloon 
restrictions.  The  Polls  open  from  1  P.  M.  to 
7  P.  M.  and  every  minute  was  one  of  excitement. 
Those  were  the  good  old  days.  It  was  worth 
while  having  a  vote  in  thim  days.  From  the 
time  you  left  your  home  until  you  reached  the 
Polling  Place,  every  political  worker  you  met 
shook  your  hand  and  invited  you  to  have  a  smile 
with  him.  Well,  sir,  if  you  had  a  heart  in  you 
at  all,  by  the  time  you  reached  the  Polling  Place 
your  heart  would  be  in  the  right  place.  Nowa- 
days in  goin'  to  vote,  the  divil  the  politician 
pays  any  heed  to  ye,  and  with  all  the  saloons 
closed  as  tight  as  Barney  Mulligan's  purse, 


GOOD  OULD  DAYS  IN  POLITICS  125 

everything  looks  more  like  a  funeral  than  a 
Primary  Election.  And,  whin  you  get  to  the 
Polls  you  have  to  declare  aloud  as  you  take  the 
ballot  publicly  into  your  hands,  the  party  you 
are  goin'  'to  affiliate  with',  as  the  Dutch  Barber 
calls  it.  In  the  ould  days  you  took  your  sup 
and  the  ticket  from  each  Faction  as  you  passed 
them  by,  and  you  had  your  own  little  ballot, 
that  you  were  goin'  to  vote,  tucked  away  in  your 
vest  pocket,  ready  to  slip  it  in  whin  you  got  to 
the  Polling  Place.  You  kept  thim  all  guessing 
as  to  how  you  voted,  but  that's  a  thing  of  the 
past.  Now,  the  politician  knows  you  a  block 
away.  You  are  on  the  books,  tabbed,  either  as 
a  Democrat  or  a  Republican,  or  whatever  else 
ye  are,  and  the  divil  the  much  time  or  friend- 
ship are  they  wastin'  on  ye.  '  Politics  has  gone 
to  the  divil,'  says  Dwyer. 

"Well,  at  this  ould-fashioned  Primary  I  am 
tellin'  you  about,  everything  went,  as  the  ould 
sayin'  is,  'When  Greeks  meet  Greeks,  then 
comes  the  tug  of  war.'  At  this  Primary,  war 
started  at  1  P.  M.  and  ended  at  7  P.  M.  and  then 
some.  The  Polling  Place  was  located  at  38th 
street  and  Archer  avenue.  The  patrol  wagon 
was  kept  on  the  go  all  the  time ;  the  voting  area 
being  Bloomington  on  the  west,  for  the  conven- 
ience of  the  Chicago  &  Alton  railroad  workmen ; 
State  street  on  the  east,  47th  street  on  the  south 
and  the  black  road  on  the  north.  More  Repub- 
lican votes  were  polled  that  day,  in  that  one 
Primary  Election  district,  than  lived  in  the  then 


126  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

28th  Ward  altogether.  Everybody  got  whipped 
that  day,  including  the  police  force.  To  help 
the  good  cause  along,  about  200  of  what  they 
called  Tom  Carry's  Indians  paid  us  a  visit  from 
the  Reservation  over  on  47th  street.  They  not 
only  voted,  but  whipped  every  one  that  they 
thought  did  not  look  just  right  to  them.  They 
came  to  help;  their  intentions  were  good,  but, 
as  they  said,  'they  were  not  mind  readers',  and 
hence  many  a  right  guy  got  a  black  eye,  through 
being  misjudged.  The  end  of  it  all,  one  of  the 
workers  at  the  polls  assaulted  the  sergeant  of 
police.  He  was  immediately  arrested,  but  soon 
bailed  out.  It  looked  like  a  sure  case  of  a  heavy 
fine.  McKenna  remembered  the  fact  that  the 
primary  worker  had  a  cork  leg.  He  advised 
the  worker  to  leave  the  cork  leg  at  home  and 
come  to  court  on  crutches.  McKenna  went  to 
his  friend  Judge  Edw.  Glennon,  who  was  the 
judge  at  the  Thirty-fifth  Street  Police  Station, 
and  told  him  the  true  story.  Said  McKenna  to 
the  judge,  'We  are  broke  after  the  expense  of 
the  Primary  Election  and  cannot  stand  for  a 
fine,  and  I've  come  to  ask  you  to  help  us.'  Well 
Sir,  Price,  the  judge  did  a  good  job.  The  judge 
looked  solemn  as  the  case  was  called.  'WTiat's 
the  charge  in  this  case?'  asked  the  judge.  'As- 
sault,' answered  the  sergeant  of  police,  as  he 
pointed  to  his  black  eye  as  evidence.  The  judge 
again  looked  solemn.  'Did  the  prisoner  strike 
you  with  his  crutch?'  'No,'  answered  the  of- 
ficer, 'he  struck  me  with  his  fist.'  The  judge: 


GOOD  OULD  DAYS  IN  POLITICS  127 

'Do  you  mean  to  say  that  this  cripple  struck 
you  with  his  fist!'  Then  the  officer  became 
frustrated.  He  knew  the  Primary  worker  as 
a  spry,  supple  fellow,  but  never  knew  he  was 
short  of  a  leg.  In  surprise,  the  officer  said, 
'  This  man  had  two  legs  yesterday. '  The  judge 
smilingly  asked  the  prisoner,  'Did  you  have 
two  legs  yesterday!'  The  prisoner  modestly 
answered,  'No,  your  honor.'  The  judge  then 
said,  'There  is  some  mistake  here,  and  I  must 
discharge  the  prisoner,'  and  so  the  judge  won 
the  case. 

"Anyhow,  those  were  the  days  of  real  sport 
for  the  politician.  There  was  as  much  enjoy- 
ment in  one  of  the  old-fashioned  Primary  Elec- 
tions for  the  party  workers  as  there  is  nowa- 
days for  the  Comiskey  fans  in  seeing  the  White 
Sox  win  the  world's  championship.  This  en- 
thusiasm will  always  continue  as  long  as  you 
keep  the  party  the  ideal  instead  of  the  indi- 
vidual. For  when  the  individual  dies  or  goes 
wrong,  then  down  comes  your  house,  but  your 
party  never,  and  there  you  have  it,"  says  Den- 
nis Dwyer. 


128 


STORIES 


THE  DAYS  OF  (REAL   SPORT. 


Here's  to  the  old  ball  field  grounds, 
Where  shouts  reached  to  the  sky. 

When  every  kid  was  happy, 
And  he  knew  the  reason  why. 

Here's  to  the  old  slippery  ice  pond, 

And  hills  both  steep  and  long: 
With  skates,  and  sleds,  and  snowy  beds, 

To  glide  our  sleds  upon. 

Here's  to  our  old  school  picnic  day, 

When  every  kid  was  there. 
Boys!  if  that  was  not  heaven; 

Then,  you've  got  to  show  me  where! 

— JOHN  J.  MCKENNA. 


RYAN,    M'KENNA    IN    CONVERSATION. 

"Begorra,  McKenna,"  says  Ryan,  ''this  Oc- 
tober weather  dampens  the  ardor  of  the  sun 
\Vorshipers,  as  the  kids  nicked  us.  Devlin  says 
the  divil  would  not  be  a  match  for  the  risin1 
gineration  of  kids.  Anyhow,  the  members  have 
all  returned  and  are  recovered  from  the  effect 
of  the  Eagles'  picnic.  Mulligan  says  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Eagle  Society  are  great  circulators 
of  the  money,  and  that  no  new  bills  are  found 
where  they  are.  The  way  they  keep  it  circulat- 
ing, they  soon  make  it  look  like  the  palm  of  a 
coal  shoveler's  hand. 

Barney  O'Flynn  says  they  are  all  good  sports 
anyway  and  doing  good;  and  are  as  free  with 
their  deeds  as  they  are  with  their  money. 

"Now,  we  have  adjourned  our  meetings  until 
next  spring,  and  have  said  goodbye  to  ould  Sol, 
our  Sun  God.  O'Flynn  says  we  remind  him  of 
a  laddybuck  that  lived  in  his  part  of  Ireland. 
It  was  at  the  time  of  the  failure  of  the  potato 
crop,  and  it  was  hard  going  for  everybody,  but 
like  the  ould  saying,  it's  a  bad  wind  that  don't 
blow  favorable  to  somebody.  Well,  in  this  case, 


130  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

the  laddybuck  friend  of  O'Flynn  saw  a  chance 
of  getting  potatoes  if  he  would  attend  the 
church  of  the  opposite  side.  'Well/  said  he, 
'I'm  in  for  some  of  them  potatoes,'  but  on  the 
road  to  get  them  he  had  to  pass  his  own  church. 
This  kind  of  stung  him,  but  as  a  consoler,  when 
passing  his  church,  he  would  look  up,  tip  his 
cap,  and  say,  Goodbye,  God,  I'll  be  back  to  you 
again  when  the  potatoes  are  good, '  and  so,  says 
O'Flynn,  'we  now  say  goodbye  to  ould  Sol,  but 
we'll  be  back  to  him  again  in  the  spring,  when 
the  sun  worshiping  is  good.' 

"Now,  then,  McKenna,  I  will  finish  my  talk 
to  you  on  the  political  question,"  says  Ryan, 
"and  what  I'm  sayin'  to  you  I've  statistics  to 
prove.  One  of  them  is  the  ould  sayin',  'no 
man's  bigger  than  his  party  organization.'  For 
just  as  soon  as  he  thinks  so,  I  have  statistics 
that  prove  that  kind  of  a  man  is  only  fooling 
one  man.  You  have  seen  the  movie  pictures  of 
how  the  wild  men  trap  the  lion  and  the  tiger — 
well,  it's  not  a  marker  for  the  trap  set  by  the 
politician  to  drop  the  man  in  that  thinks  and 
acts  as  though  he  were  bigger  than  his  party 
organization. 

"The  war  price  of  paper  is  too  expensive  to 
waste  writing  the  names  of  all  of  the  men  of  the 
past  that  tried  that  game. 

"Again,  I  have  statistics  to  prove  it  don't 
make  any  difference  whether  you  are  a  good 
shoveler  in  the  Wafer  Pipe  Extension  Depart- 
ment or  a  good  judge  on  the  bench,  if  you're 


RYAN  AND  MAC  CONVERSE  131 

party  organization  doesn't  succeed,  your  meal 
ticket  is  about  punched  out.  For  the  great  ques- 
tions that  come  up  for  the  consideration  of  the 
voters,  as  a  general  rule,  and  especially  so  in 
large  cities,  are  so  forcefully  decided  that  the 
individual  and  his  good  work  is  overlooked. 
So  my  statistics  show,  while  you  may  get  by 
once  in  a  while,  if  you  don 't  keep  in  the  friend- 
ship of  the  organization  you  will  soon  find  you 
are  doing  a  one-night  stand  business. 

t '  For  we  are  now  living  in  a  new  age  of  sys- 
tem and  organization.  The  individual  is  but  a 
small  factor  today  in  the  world,  and  with  the 
quick  communication  concerning  everything  in 
the  world,  there's  no  more  mystic  in  the  indi- 
vidual. Familiarity,  as  O'Flynn  says,  breeds 
contempt.  And  from  the  looks  of  things  ahead, 
and  with  the  close  information  concerning  every 
one  in  high  places,  as  reported  by  the  press 
news  into  every  home,  there  will  be  fewer  hero 
worshipers  in  the  days  to  come  than  there  were 
in  the  days  gone  by.  There  you  have  it. 

'  '  Again,  I  have  statistics  to  show  that  in  poli- 
tics as  in  playing  poker,  you  have  got  to  have 
something  besides  wind  and  talk  to  come  in  on. 
And  here  is  a  story  to  illustrate  it. 

"Dennis  Dwyer  tells  the  story  that  new  in- 
ventions bring  new  troubles.  Says  Dwyer: 
'When  I  got  home  to  supper  last  night,  Mary 
Ann,  my  wife,  nearly  ate  the  head  off  me.' 
'Come,'  says  she,  'Dennis,  come,  before  you  ate 
or  before  I  scold  you.  Who  is  the  lassy  I  am 


132  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

told  you  were  drinking  beer  with  down  at  Tear- 
ney's  hall?  Explain!  before  I  forget  myself.' 
'Don't  be  excited,  Mary  Ann,'  said  I.  'Don't 
you  know  of  the  new  condition.  The  woman  suf- 
fragette. That  lady  I  was  taking  a  social  glass 
of  beer  with,  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  Lady 
President  of  the  Personal  Liberty  League  of  my 
precinct.'  She  says,  "Lady  or  no  lady,  Dennis, 
if  you  want  peace  in  this  house,  don't  you  come 
home  to  me  with  as  lame  an  excuse  as  that 
again.  Divil  take  you  and  your  lady  personal 
liberty  heresy,'  says.  she.  'Up  to  this  now, 
Mary  Ann, '  says  I, '  there  was  harmony  between 
us.  Listen,  now,  if  I  am  to  hold  my  job  in  the 
Water  Pipe  Extension  Department,  I  will  have 
to  do  some  electioneering.  You  know  I  had  to 
set  up  the  drinks  manys  the  time  with  the  min 
voters,  and  was  kept  out  late  at  nights,  and 
now  that  the  women  have  the  vote,  it  will  be 
just  as  hard  a  job  to  please  the  women.'  'Well, 
Den'nis,'  she  says,  'if  that's  what's  goin'  on 
there's  enough  of  my  mother's  people  in  the 
ward  to  form  a  club  of  my  own,  and  I'll  be  in 
the  game,  too,  and  I'll  show  you  more  for  my 
efforts  than  the  Water  Pipe  Extension  Depart- 
ment. '  '  Oh,  ye  can 't  conquer  them,  we  might  as 
well  give  in,'  said  Dwyer.  And  this  is  just  as 
true  with  politics,  as  Mary  Ann  said.  That 
kind  of  talk  don't  go,  and  when  you  come  into 
politics,  with  nothing  but  a  lame  story,  you're 
not  goin'  to  go  far,  and  you're  not  goin'  to  so 
frighten  people  that  they  will  lay  awake  nights 


RYAN  AND  MAC  CONVEKSE  133 

in  dread  of  you.  Wind,  and  talk  without  the 
money,  cut  about  as  much  figure  in  politics  as 
it  would  in  Barney  Mulligans  bank,  or  before 
the  Stock  Exchange  in  Wall  street,  or  the  Board 
of  Trade  in  Chicago.  And  there  you  have  it,  and 
here  are  the  statistics  to  prove  it,"  says  Ryan. 

"Now,  in  the  small  cities,  towns  or  counties, 
when  a  man  presents  himself  for  any  important 
office,  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  the  people  know 
of  him.  If  he  has  not  the  qualification  and  the 
goods,  divil  a  one  is  payin'  any  attention  to 
him,  except  the  constable  or  sheriff. 

"But  in  the  big  cities,  with  your  expensive 
direct  primary  system,  where  ninety-nine  per 
cent  of  the  people  who  vote  don't  know  one  per 
cent  of  the  candidates  presented;  and  with  all 
the  nationalities  on  earth  havin'  a  vote,  names 
are  what  attract  them  more  than  qualifications. 
As  O'Flynn  says,  'it's  manys  a  rogue  that  has 
a  name  that  looks  good,  and  it's  manys  the 
time  that  that  name  secures  for  the  holder  a 
high  place  on  the  party  ticket.  Whin,  if  the 
party  organization  had  the  doing  of  it  that 
name  would  not  be  on  the  party  ticket  for  con- 
stable. ' 

"Laws  regulating  political  organization  are 
a  waste  of  money,  and  if  the  min  that  invented 
the  scheme  to  do  the  regulating  were  to  pay  the 
expense  of  the  experiment  instead  of  the  tax 
payers,  there  would  be  fewer  of  them,  for  sta- 
tistics prove  that  politics  is  a  business  in  itself, 
just  like  the  banking  business,  the  medical  pro- 


134  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

fession,  or  any  other  business  or  profession. 
And  it  will,  and  has  always  been,  run  and  man- 
aged by  the  men  in  that  line.  Opposition  at 
times  of  course  will  develop,  and  factions  will 
come  out  of  opposition,  but  these  are  one-night- 
stand  affairs.  The  leaders  of  such  will  either 
come  back  into  the  fold  or  else  drop  out  of  the 
business.  New  leaders  will  come  and  go,  but 
the  rank  and  file,  and  the  system,  will  be  doin' 
business  from  the  same  ould  headquarters. 
And,  as  Barney  Mulligan  says,  'There  'tis  till 
ye.'  " 


A  FEW  STORIES  BY  MEMBERS  OF  THE 
SUN  WORSHIPERS'  CLUB  ON  OLD  DAYS 
IN  POLITICS. 

"Well,  well,"  says  Ryan,  the  statistician, 
"we  had  a  great  season  of  it  below  at  the  old 
McKinley  Park,  with  the  members  of  the  Sun 
Worshipers'  Club,  as  the  kids  called  us. 

"And  any  one  that  followed  our  discourses 
and  is  not  a  full-fledged  politician,  it's  safe  to 
say  of  him  he  was  never  cut  out  for  the  job. 
We  gave  them  pointers  enough  to  be  masters  of 
the  game." 

"Yes,"  says  Barney  O'Flynn,  "but  there's 
not  the  fun  in  politics  that  there  was  twenty- 
five  years  ago.  In  those  days  we  had  as  much 
fun  at  the  political  meetings  as  you  would  now- 
adays at  the  circus,  and  one  of  as  funny  a  meet- 
ing as  I  ever  attended  was  a  Democratic  meet- 
ing in  the  old  Eighth  Ward,  where  ould  Michael 
Fitzgerald,  the  tailor,  was  the  presiding  officer. 
He  was  there  with  his  usual  full-dress  suit,  his 
high  hat,  and  the  shillaleh  that  he  always  had 


136  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

with  him;  it  was  the  size  of  a  small  cord  wood 
stick. 

"  'What's  your  pleasure,'  says  he,  hitting  the 
table  a  wallop  that  caused  a  shiver  to  come  over 
us  all. 

' '  Then  up  jumped  a  little  classical  man  in  the 
back  of  the  room,  calling  'Mr.  Chairman,  Mr. 
Chairman.'  Again  Fitz.  struck  down  hard  on 
the  table  with  his  shillaleh,  and,  said  he,  'I  heard 
you  the  first  time.  What  is  it!' 

"  'I  arise  to  place  in  nomination,  as  Demo- 
cratic candidate  of  the  Eighth  Ward,  our  true, 
tried,  and  esteemed  friend,  Tim  Ryan.' 

"Well,  sir,  the  noise  in  favor  was  so  great  I 
thought  they'd  drive  holes  through  the  floor. 
When  quiet  was  restored  a  little  Italian  that 
was  within  easy  reach  of  Fitz.  stood  up.  He 
was  excited  and  for  a  few  minutes  could  say 
nothing,  but  all  the  time  trying,  and  making  a 
noise  like  a  steam  peanut  roasting  machine. 
Finally  he  mentioned  some  Italian  as  a  candi- 
date for  alderman.  He  was  about  to  sit  down, 
when  Fitz.  up  with  his  shillaleh  and  hit  him  on 
the  head  a  sound  wallop,  saying  to  the  Italian, 
'You  sit  down,  you  said  enough.' 

"Then  said  Fitz.  quickly,  'Are  there  any 
further  nominations?  If  not,  I  declare  the  nom- 
inations closed  ,and  Tim  Ryan  is  now  the  regu- 
lar Democratic  nominee  for  alderman  of  the 
Eighth  Ward  and  the  meeting  do  now  stand  ad- 
journed.' 

"Well,  sir,  it  was  the  liveliest  adjourned 
meeting  any  man  ever  set  eyes  upon,  but  it  was 


FlTZ  AND  THE  GAVEL  137 

fun  if  you  were  prepared  to  handle  yourself." 

"That's  a  good  one,  Flynn,"  said  Pat  Price, 
"but  for  real  sport  let  me  tell  you  of  a  primary 
election  I  attended  over  in  the  old  Tenth  Ward. 
This  was  in  the  old  days.  Well,  sir,  opposition 
put  in  its  appearance  unexpectedly  and  the  cap- 
tain gave  orders  to  get  busy.  Says  he,  'Vote 
early  and  often  and  for  all  the  absentees. '  Any- 
how, Jerry  Duffy,  one  of  the  Water  Pipe  Ex- 
tension Gang,  was  there.  He  was  always  the 
first  to  vote  at  every  primary  election.  Signs 
on  him,  he  was  always  on  the  pay  roll  and  was 
working  where  the  pay  was  good  and  the  shov- 
eling easy. 

"There  was  a  precinct  captain  by  the  name 
of  Charley  Smith  there,  who  stood  below  at  the 
corner  with  the  printed  poll  list,  furnishing  the 
names  of  the  absentees  to  the  boys  who  were  to 
vote  them. 

"Anyhow,  with  every  trip  Jerry  Duffy  made 
to  the  polls  to  vote  an  absentee,  he  would  take 
a  drink  of  German  rye  to  brace  him  for  the  oc- 
casion. He  voted  for  about  eight  absentees,  un- 
der the  name  of  every  nationality  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. Finally,  when  he  came  to  vote  the 
ninth  time,  with  the  name  of  Herman  Schultz, 
he  was  so  full  he  had  to  hold  up  his  head  for 
fear  that  it  would  spill  out,  and  all  the  while 
trying  to  look  very  dignified. 

"  'Herman  Schultz,'  said  Duffy. 

"This  was  more  than  little  Officer  McCarthy 
could  stand.  He  had  had  his  eye  on  Duffy  all 


138  McKENNA's  STORIES 

the  afternoon.  'Come,  come,  Duffy,'  says  he. 
'Come  away  from  there.  You're  a  disgrace. 
You're  on  your  ninth  trip  now,  and  you  have 
voted  under  the  name  of  every  nationality  in 
America.  I'll  jug  you  if  you  don't  get  out  of 
here." 

"  'McCarthy,'  says  Duffy,  'I  know  who  I  am.' 

11  'You  think  you  do,'  answered  Officer  Mc- 
Carthy, 'but  that  German  rye  you  have  been 
supping  has  you  twisted.  You  are  a  disgrace, 
I'm  telling  ye.  You  get  out  of  here,  or  I  will 
have  the  patrol  take  you. ' 

"  'I  know  who  I  am,  McCarthy,'  said  Duffy, 
'and  it's  not  your  business  to  interfere  with  the 
voters.  Hegewisch  for  you  tomorrow. ' 

"  'You're  not  Schultz,'  said  Officer  McCar- 
thy. '  You  are  Jerry  Duffy. ' 

"  'I  know  who  I  am,  McCarthy,'  says  Duffy. 

"Just  at  this  time  Mrsfl  Duffy  was  coming  up 
the  street,  when  McCarthy  says,  'Here  comes 
one  now  that  will  know  you.  Here,'  says  Mc- 
Carthy to  Mrs.  Duffy,  '  take  this  man  away  with 
you;  he  is  disgracing  himself.' 

"Just  then  the  judge  cried  aloud,  'What  did 
you  say  the  name  was?' 

"  'Herman  Schultz,'  answered  Duffy,  'are 
you  deaf?' 

"  'Well,  well,  well,  do  you  hear  that?'  said 
Mrs.  Duffy,  'and  I  have  lived  with  that  man  for 
twenty-nine  years  under  the  consumed  name  of 
Duffy!  Well,  well,  well,  and  his  name  is  Her- 
man Schultz.' 


FlTZ  AND  THE  GAVEL  139 

"  'Woman,  says  Duffy,  'I  don't  know  you.' 

"  'My  God,'  she  wailed,  'he's  gone  mad  en- 
tirely. ' 

"  'No,'  said  Officer  McCarthy,  'he's  not  mad; 
he's  drunk  on  German  rye.  Come  out  of  here, 
Duffy,  or  I'll  jug  you,'  says  McCarthy. 

"With  one  last  dignified  straightening  up  of 
his  head,  he  voted  again  as  Herman  Schultz. 
Then  proudly  he  walked  away,  holding  up  his 
head  so  as  not  to  spill  it,  and  as  he  did  he  kept 
saying,  '  Hegewisch  for  you  in  the  morning,  Mc- 
Carthy, for  interfering  with  the  voters.' 

"At  a  short  distance  from  the  polls  the  old 
woman  got  Duffy  again.  He  then  tried  to  bfe 
funny,  and  said  to  the  wife,  '  Can 't  you  take  a 
joke,  I  was  just  helping  out  some  of  the  boys 
that  are  away  on  their  vacation.  That  Officer 
McCarthy,  I  will  have  him  in  Hegewisch  to- 
morrow, traveling  beat  among  the  grasshop- 
pers. ' 

"In  the  meantime  a  fight  started  at  the  poll- 
ing place.  One  of  the  boys  struck  one  of  the 
opposition.  The  opposition  was  down.  Our 
fellow  was  on  top  of  him.  Any  one  by  this  time 
knew  the  opposition  was  beaten  at  the  primary 
election.  Officer  McCarthy,  with  the  thought  of 
Hegewisch  and  the  grasshopper  on  his  mind, 
now  became  diplomatic.  He  rolled  the  man  off 
from  the  assaulted  man,  then  took  the  assaulted 
man  to  the  station  with  him,  charging  him  with 
starting  a  fight  at  the  polling  place.  The  pre- 
cinct captain  was  on.  McCarthy  didn't  go  to 
Hegewisch,  and  so  we  won  the  day, ' '  said  Price. 


140  McKENNA's  STORIES 

But  those  were  the  days  of  real  sport  in  poli- 
tics. 

"Anyhow,"  says  Barney  O'Flynn,  "the  ris- 
ing generation  will  never  quit  with  their  tricks 
until  they're  behind  the  bars.  Barney  Mulligan 
and  myself  arranged  to  go  on  a  fishing  trip  out 
to  Pickerel  Point.  We  started  about  five  thirty 
A.  M.  on  the  trip,  not  thinking  it  was  Primary 
Election  Day.  Well,  sir,  the  early  bird  politi- 
cians saw  us  as  we  drove  by  the  polling  place  in 
our  little  Ford.  And  they  learned  where  we 
were  bound  for,  and  thinking  we  would  not  re- 
turn during  the  day,  what  the  divil  did  they  do, 
but  in  the  dark  of  the  morning  they  got  two  of 
the  laddybucks  that  were  hanging  around  the 
polling  place  to  go  and  give  the  names  of  my- 
self and  Barney  Mulligan  and  voted  the  both  of 
us  as  Democrats,  and  this  under  the  new  expen- 
sive primary  laws.  We  are  now  barred,  they 
tell  us,  for  two  years  to  come  from  voting  again 
in  the  primary  unless  we  vote  it  Democratic. 
Now,  what  do  you  think  of  that  for  a  trick? 
Sure,  when  we  came  back,  late  in  the  day,  and 
tried  to  vote,  we  were  told  by  the  judges  to  go 
and  chase  ourselves  and  not  to  try  anything 
like  that  on  them  or  they'd  have  us  jugged. 
Says  they,  'Ye  were  here  early  and  voted. 
Don't  think,'  said  they,  'ye  are  back  in  the  ould 
days. ' 

' i  *  Ould  days  or  not, '  says  we, '  we  see  there 's 
tricks  in  all  trades,  and  we'll  find  out  who  did 
this  trick,  and  when  we  do  it's  not  complaining 


FlTZ  AND  THE  GAVEL,  14i 

we'll  be  to  our  friend  Judge  Scully,  but  we'll 
wait  until  the  day  before  the  next  primary  elec- 
tion, and  then  we'll  trim  the  two  Democrats 
that  voted  us  so  bad  that  they'll  not  be  able  to 
go  to  vote.  Then  we'll  call  it  a  pair  off,  like 
they  do  in  Congress.  They'll  find  they'll  gain 
nothing  by  them  kind  of  tricks  with  us.  Any- 
how, the  divil  couldn't  make  laws  that  would 
prevent  the  rising  generations  from  twisting. 
And  there  ye  have  it." 


142 


MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


A  TOAST  TO  THE  FLAG. 


Here's  to  the  American  Flag, 

The  symbol  of  Freedom  and  Justice; 

Whether  lying  in  the  mud 

Or  on  a  mound  of  flowers, 

It  stands  for  the  same. 

No  act  of  man  can  lower  or  elevate  it 
It's  symbolic  of  Freedom  and  Justice; 
The  meaning  for  which  it  stands 
Can  never  change. 

It's  the  ever-living  reminder 

Pointing  to  intolerance  against  Freedom  and  Justice. 

It's  hypocrisy  and  sacrilege  to  use  it 

Except  in  that  for  which  it  stands. 


The  O'L«ary  Home. 


M'KENNA  IN  REMINISCENCE  OF  THE  CHI- 
CAGO FIRE  OF  1871. 

This  is  the  46th  anniversary  of  the  big  Chi- 
cago fire  of  October  9, 1871. 

It  seems  that  persons  who  lived  in  Chicago 
at  that  time,  when  they  arrive  at  a  certain  age, 
they  try  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Chicago  fire  as 
it  appeared  to  them  on  that  night.  So  I  am 
going  to  try  and  tell  my  story. 

I  don't  know  whether  it  was  O'Leary's  cow 
that  kicked  the  lamp  over,  which  set  the  barn 


144  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

on  fire,  but  I  do  know  that  the  barn  which  stood 
on  the  rear  of  the  lot  where  Mrs.  O'Leary  lived 
was  the  first  place  to  take  fire  that  night. 

The  O'Leary  home  was  situated  on  the  north 
side  of  Dekoven  street,  about  six  lots  west  of 
Clinton  street,  and  on  the  night  of  the  fire  at 
about  9  P.  M.,  myself  and  four  young  men  from 
the  same  neighborhood  where  I  lived,  were  tak- 
ing a  walk  along  Halsted  street  toward  Dekoven 
street.  James  Sheridan,  who  resides  at  919 
West  38th  street,  is  the  only  one  of  the  four 
pals  of  that  night  who  is  still  in  the  land  of  the 
living.  Just  as  we  got  to  Dekoven  street  we 
heard  the  old  Court  House  bell  ring  out,  and 
along  came  a  fire  engine.  We  followed  the  en- 
gine down  Dekoven  street  until  we  came  to 
where  the  fire  was.  It  was  the  O'Leary  barn 
and  the  top  of  it  was  going  full  blast  with  flames 
of  fire.  It  was  a  small  barn,  at  that. 

It  did  not  look  like  we  were  going  to  get  our 
worth  of  fun  and  excitement  for  the  hot  chase 
we  made  to  get  to  the  fire.  We  thought  it  would 
be  but  a  short  job  for  the  firemen  to  put  it  out, 
but  the  fire  and  sparks  were  rolling  out.  It  was 
just  getting  to  our  liking  when  we  got  a  call 
from  some  one  on  the  south  side  of  the  street, 
just  a  little  east  from  the  O'Leary  home,  asking 
for  help.  We  rushed  over,  and,  as  ordered,  car- 
ried out  a  corpse  that  was  laid  out  upon  a 
stretcher.  By  this  time  the  crowd  had  become 
very  numerous,  and  we  had  a  difficult  job  to 
make  our  way  east  on  Dekoven  street  to  Canal 


145 


street.  We  let  down  the  corpse  on  the  sidewalk, 
on  the  west  side  of  Canal  street,  about  100  feet 
south  of  Dekoven  street.  This  was  thought  a 
safe  place,  and  the  members  of  the  family 
thanked  us. 


State   and    Madison   Streets 


Back  we  went  to  the  fire.  It  now  looked  ex- 
citing enough,  for  within  the  half  hour  there 
were  ten  different  fires.  And  here,  let  me  say, 
the  story  of  the  cow  and  the  lamp  is  as  old  as 
the  fire,  for  within  that  hour  the  kids  around 
Clinton  and  Dekoven  streets  were  relating 


146  McKENNA's  STORIES 

about  the  cow  kickin'  'over  the  lamp'  and  caus- 
ing the  fire. 

That  neighborhood  was  built  almost  of  frame 
buildings.  It  was  the  old  residence  district, 
with  small  stores  and  dwellings  from  Dekoven 
street  north  to  Adams,  and  from  Jefferson 
street  east  to  where  the  Chicago  &  Alton  tracks 
are  now.  In  those  days  from  Dekoven  street  to 
Harrison  street  on  the  east  side  of  Canal  up  to 
the  Alton  tracks,  was  a  thickly  settled  resident 
district. 

There  had  been  no  rain  for  thirty  days  pre- 
vious to  the  fire.  Everything  was  bone  dry,  and 
fire  prevention  conditions  bad.  There  were  old 
planing  mills  along  this  district,  where  shavings 
were  piled  up  outside  on  the  streets  as  high  as 
small  houses.  Everything  was  in  good  condi- 
tion for  a  fire. 

The  weather  was  exceptionally  warm;  the 
wind  was  coming  southwest,  and  it  seemed  that 
as  the  fire  grew  bigger,  the  stronger  the  wind 
did  blow.  In  thirty  minutes  after  the  fire  was 
well  started,  there  were  in  that  territory  one  or 
two  blocks  apart  at  least  fifteen  fires. 

The  old  Court  House  bell  was  ringing  out 
wild.  This  was  the  means  in  those  days  to  call 
the  attention  of  the  Fire  Department  to  where 
the  fires  were  located. 

Within  another  half  hour  there  were  so  many 
fires  that  everything  was  lost  control  of.  The 
fire  did  not  get  any  farther  west  than  Jefferson 
street,  but  it  did  clean  up  the  west  side  from 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIRE 


147 


Dekoven  street  to  Adams  street  and  from  about 
the  east  side  of  Jefferson  street  to  the  Chicago 
River  on  the  east. 

It  now  got  over  onto  the  east  side  of  the  river 


Clark   and    Randolph    Streets    Liooking   East. 

between  Jackson  and  Adams  streets.  The 
bridges  then  crossing  the  river  on  the  west  side 
were  at  Polk,  Van  Buren,  Adams,  Madison, 


148  MCKENNA'S  STOEIES 

Randolph  and  Lake  streets.  The  east  bank  of 
the  river  from  Harrison  street  to  Polk  street 
was  occupied  by  stone  yards. 

On  the  east  side  of  the  river,  between  Adams 
and  Monroe  streets  the  old  gas  house  stood, 
with  very  large  gas  tanks,  and  here,  surround- 
ing the  old  gas  plant,  was  what  was  called  the 
Connolly  patch ;  all  frame  and  bad  fire  preven- 
tive conditions.  As  the  fire  increased  every- 
body was  satisfied  it  would  reach  those  tanks. 
The  information  going  the  rounds  was  that  the 
gas  was  being  allowed  to  escape.  If  this  was 
so,  of  course  it  helped  the  fire  along;  but  it 
would  have  been  worse  if  it  had  been  left  to  ex- 
plode. Anyhow,  as  the  fire  spread,  all  gas  con- 
nections were  opened  from  the  different  burn- 
ing buildings. 

After  the  fire  got  across  the  river  at  Adams 
street  it  went  down  along  Market  street  to 
South  Water  street.  I  saw  the  old  Garden  City 
Hotel  burning,  at  Market  and  Madison  streets, 
where  the  Examiner  Building  now  stands.  It 
was  quite  a  picturesque  old  hotel,  and  it  made 
a  great  fire  display. 

In  the  loop  there  were  fires  bursting  out 
everywhere,  in  a  hundred  different  places;  and 
to  show  how  quickly  it  spread,  this  was  all  going 
on  within  two  hours  after  the  fire  had  started 
away  up  on  Dekoven  street,  at  O'Leary's. 

The  four  young  men  that  I  was  with  on  that 
night  saw  a  lot  of  the  fire  and  just  kept  on 
a-going  in  the  excitement.  From  the  time  we 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIRE 


149 


left  O'Leary's  place  at  about  9:30  P.  M.,  and 
walked  down  Canal  street,  we  kept  ahead  of  the 
fire.  We  crossed  Van  Buren  street  bridge,  went 


Clark  and  Randolph,  Looking  North  From  Court  House. 

down  Market  street  to  Madison  street,  then 
back  on  Franklin  street  to  Adams  street,  then 
over  to  the  Court  House.  We  saw  all  the  pris- 


150  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


oners  being  released.  When  things  got  so  hot 
at  the  Court  House  that  everybody  knew  it  was 
going  to  burn  up,  the  prisoners  were  let  free. 
excepting  those  that  were  held  for  serious  of- 
fenses, and  who  had  to  be  taken  elsewhere.  We 
saw  the  guards  standing  with  revolvers  in  hand 
in  front  of  the  Chambers  Jewelry  Store,  which 
was  just  opposite  the  jail  at  the  southeast  cor- 
ner of  Clark  and  Randolph  streets;  the  jail 
then  being  in  the  basement  of  the  old  Court 
House.  When  the  prisoners  were  released  they 
probably  had  in  mind  the  jewelry  store,  but  for 
any  kind  of  loot,  it  was  not  a  good  night,  it  be- 
ing Sunday  night.  All  things  of  value  had  been 
locked  up  in  the  safes  and  as  for  articles  other 
than  money  or  jewelry,  looting  was  not  worth 
while.  From  what  we  saw,  persons  so  inclined 
could  take  away  with  them  anything  they 
wanted  in  the  line  of  clothing  or  clothes  and 
various  other  valuable  things,  but  of  what  value 
would  it  be  to  them?  All  they  could  take  away 
would  be  what  they  could  carry  and  then  they 
would  have  to  go  miles  with  it  to  a  place  of 
safety,  so  there  was  but  very  little  looting  go- 
ing on. 

The  principal  street  in  the  city  for  dry  goods 
and  merchandise  was  Lake  street,  from  Market 
street  to  State  street;  Randolph  street  was  a 
good  business  street;  old  South  Water  street 
was  in  worse  condition  than  it  is  today. 

The  substantial  part  of  Chicago  was  within 
the  district  bounded  by  Market  street,  the  lake, 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIBE 


151 


Monroe  street  and  South  Water  street.  The 
Board  of  Trade  Building  stood  where  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  Building  now  stands. 


Adams   Street  Bridge,   After  the   Fire. 

The  old  Court  House  stood  in  the  square  where 
the  City  Hall  and  County  Buildings  now  stand. 
There  is  very  little  comparison  to  be  made  be- 
tween old  Chicago  and  the  loop  as  it  is  today 


152  MC!CENNA'S  STORIES 

regarding  valuable  buildings.  Of  course  there 
were  a  lot  of  substantial  buildings  of  the  old 
type  within  the  loop  district  north  of  Monroe 
street. 

All  the  other  territory  through  which  the  fire 
extended,  as  far  north  as  Lincoln  Park,  was 
what  might  be  called  the  old  homemade  Chi- 
cago. Seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  people  who 
lived  in  Chicago  in  those  days  lived  within  that 
territory.  South  of  Monroe  street  were  two, 
three,  and  four  story  buildings,  brick  and  frame 
adjoining  each  other;  used  as  residences  and 
stores,  and  the  people  lived  where  they  kept 
their  business. 

The  difference  in  Chicago  then  as  compared 
with  today  is  in  the  territory  that  was  destroyed 
by  fire.  Today  it  would  not  contain  ten  per  cent 
of  the  residences  of  Chicago,  while  in  those  days 
it  contained  seventy-five  per  cent  of  all  the  peo- 
ple who  lived  in  Chicago. 

What  is  now  called  Racine  avenue  is  about 
as  far  west  as  there  were  any  homes  in  those 
days.  North  avenue  was  the  limit  on  the  north 
and  there  were  very  few  homes  beyond  that. 
Thirty-ninth  street  was  the  limit  on  the  south ; 
very  few  houses  beyond  that  line. 

The  most  pitiful  sight  to  see  was  this  sev- 
enty-five per  cent  of  the  people  turned  out  with- 
out time  to  take  away  any  of  their  belongings 
and  with  no  place  to  go  for  shelter,  as  there  was 
not  room  enough  in  the  homes  left  to  hold  them. 
On  the  north  side  of  the  city,  Horace  Gree- 


^Bi^^H 


154  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

ley's  advice  was  working.  They  were  all  going 
west  as  fast  as  they  could  to  get  away  from  the 
fire.  Goose  Island,  that  night,  looked  like 
Heaven  to  people,  as  it  was  a  place  of  safety. 
The  old  Washington  street  tunnel  was  crowded 
with  people  going  over  to  the  West  Side. 

During  the  first  few  hours  many  fires  broke 
out,  but  everybody  was  given  a  warning ;  a  kind 
of  a  Paul  Eevere  cry,  was  going  over  the  city. 

Taking  everything  into  consideration,  very 
few  lives  were  reported  lost,  though  conditions 
were  bad.  Whisky  and  beer  were  as  free  as 
water.  I  never  saw  so  many  drunks  in  all  my 
life  as  I  saw  that  night,  and  I  have  seen  many 
big  nights  in  Chicago. 

We  saw  one  man  whom  we  all  thought  must 
have  lost  his  life  in  the  fire.  This  was  on  the 
west  side  of  Franklin  street,  between  Monroe 
and  Madison  streets.  There  were  small  stores 
here  then.  This  man  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
something  and  returned  for  it.  The  crowd  all 
called  for  him  to  come  out  and  not  go  back,  but 
he  went  back.  We  all  stood  anxious  to  see  him 
return.  He  apparently  left  the  store  with  what 
he  went  back  for,  but  before  he  got  to  a  place  of 
safety,  and  as  the  crowd  was  yelling,  "Come! 
Come,  quick ! "  a  gust  of  fire  burst  out  between 
the  buildings  and  he  seemed  to  have  been  en- 
gulfed in  the  flame.  We  watched  for  a  time, 
but  did  not  see  him  again. 

I  was  standing  by  and  saw  the  Court  House 
on  fire ;  the  Board  of  Trade  Building ;  the  Grand 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIRE  155 

Pacific  Hotel,  just  being  completed,  and  only 
roofed  over.  It  seemed  a  shame  to  think  it  must 
go  down.  It  stood  so  high,  and  from  the  reflec- 
tions of  the  fire  striking  it,  it  looked  like  it  was 
on  fire  a  long  time  before  it  actually  took  fire. 
I  saw  the  Sherman  House  on  fire,  the  Palmer 
House,  and  McVicker's  Theater;  the  Eock 
Island  and  Illinois  Central  Depots.  Near  the 
Illinois  Central  Depot  on  the  north  side  of 
Randolph  street  east  of  Michigan  avenue,  about 
3  A.  M.  Monday  morning,  was  the  hottest  spot 
in  town.  This  locality  was  well  built  up,  and 
many  hotels  along  the  street  fronted  the  depot. 
There  were  great  hopes  that  the  Rock  Island 
Depot  would  escape  it,  but  that  old  wind  was 
going  full  blast,  southwest.  Once  in  a  while 
there  would  be  a  lull;  then  a  kick  back  which 
would  set  buildings  on  fire  a  block  south  of 
where  the  fire  actually  was.  This  happened  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Rock  Island  Depot. 

Where  the  Board  of  Trade  Building  now 
stands,  was  then  the  part  of  the  city  known  as 
the  "Red  Light  District."  It  covered  a  space — 
Van  Buren  street  to  Adams  street,  and  from 
just  west  of  Clark  street  to  Wells  street — about 
one-quarter  of  a  mile  square.  Old  frame,  one, 
two,  and  three  story  buildings;  looked  like  an 
old  border  town;  wild  west.  Here  was  the 
worst  part  and  the  worst  condition  for  fire  pre- 
vention and  everything  else  that  was  in  and 


156  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

around  Chicago.  It  went  up  like  a  matchbox 
when  the  fire  hit  it. 

One  of  the  many  sad  sights  to  look  upon  in 
the  days  after  the  fire  was  that  part  within  the 
loop  district  where  all  the  savings  of  the  people 
were.  Those  who  were  lucky  enough  to  live  in 
the  territory  where  the  fire  did  not  reach  had 
their  money  here,  the  same  as  those  who  were 
burned  out.  As  they  looked  over  that  burning 
mass  they  must  have  had  many  a  sad  think,  but 
"what's  the  use  of  borrowing  trouble,"  as  Bar- 
ney O'Flynn  says,  and  so  it  was  in  this  in- 
stance ;  for  in  the  end  the  bankers  all  made  good 
and  the  depositors  lost  nothing. 

All  seemed  to  have  lost  their  heads  that  night. 
They  worked  themselves  and  everybody  else 
near  to  death  helping  to  carry  their  goods  to 
the  street,  thinking  that  something  might  conic 
to  their  relief;  but  all  this  work  was  wasted 
time  and  labor  and  added  to  the  fire.  Just  about 
the  time  they  finished  carrying  out  their  goods 
along  would  come  the  fire  and  burn  them  up. 
And  this  kept  up  all  night — working,  helping, 
but  all  in  vain.  They  might  just  as  well  have 
locked  the  door  and  let  it  go. 

I  walked  from  Van  Buren  street  to  Randolph 
street  along  the  Lake  Front  about  4  A.  M.  Mon- 
day morning.  Thousands  of  people  were  over 
there.  The  heat  was  intense  and  the  excitement 
great.  People  began  to  fear  that  they  would 
burn  up.  There  were  many  people  lying  as 
close  to  the  lake  as  they  could  get,  and  at  that 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIRE  157 

time  the  lake  came  up  to  within  one  or  two  hun- 
dred feet  of  the  east  side  of  Michigan  avenue. 

The  fire  crossed  over  the  river  to  the  North 
Side  late  at  night.  We  were  over  on  the  North 
Side  as  far  as  Chicago  avenue,  but  the  South 
Side  was  where  the  excitement  was  and  we  did 
not  stay  but  a  short  time  on  the  North  Side. 
The  excitement  just  kept  us  on  the  go  all  night. 
We  came  out  of  the  loop  district  and  crossed 
the  Randolph  street  bridge  Monday  morning 
about  9  A.  M.  With  all  my  work  that  night  I 
had  lost  my  coat  and  hat,  and  now,  with  others. 
I  was  returning  home  without  a  coat.  I  had  a 
plug  hat  and  an  old  banjo  and  was  black  enough 
from  the  smoke  and  soot  of  the  night  to  go  on 
for  a  minstrel  turn.  Right  here  something 
funny  took  place.  Some  one  had  knocked  a 
head  out  of  a  barrel  of  whisky.  There  were 
several  barrels  on  the  walk  at  the  southwest 
corner  of  the  bridge,  but  there  was  no  water  to 
be  had  as  a  chaser.  They  were  informed  at 
this  time  that  the  Water  Works  had  burned 
down,  and  soon  the  police  came  along  and 
chased  that  crowd  away  from  the  whisky  bar- 
rels. 

That  old  fire  was  so  quick  and  picturesque, 
people  acted  as  though  they  were  mesmerized 
from  looking  at  it ;  a  lot  of  people  never  got  on 
to  the  serious  part  of  it  until  it  was  all  over. 
Now,  from  9  P.  M.  Sunday  until  9:30  A.  M. 
Monday  morning  every  hope  was  gone.  We 
met  several*  people  then  coming  down  town  as 


158  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

we  were  going  home.  I  remember  we  said, 
"The  show  is  all  over,  everything  is  gone." 

What  a  sight  it  was  to  look  up  toward  the 
sky  that  night !  It  looked  like  a  moving  sea  of 
fire;  millions  of  sparkling  lighted  coals  were 
moving  along  swiftly  above  Chicago ;  hundreds 
of  burning  boards,  old  mattresses,  old  paper 
roofs;  all  soaring  on  high  and  all  afire.  It 
made  the  night  so  bright  you  could  pick  up  a 
pin  on  the  street.  Everybody  we  met  late  that 
morning  looked  as  though  they  were  in  a  trance. 
What  a  crowd  they  were,  and  just  running  from 
one  place  to  another!  In  the  center  of  the  loop 
that  night,  as  we  looked  up,  it  seemed  that  the 
world  was  on  fire. 

Soon  after  the  city  authorities  recovered 
from  the  shock,  and  as  the  kindness  of  the  whole 
world  showered  in  upon  all  the  people,  small 
homes  were  erected  for  the  very  poor,  that  are 
always  with  us.  The  fine  weather  that  we  had 
to  a  way  late  in  the  fall,  helped  the  people  to 
carry  their  troubles. 

Takiiig  everything  into  consideration,  with 
the  gr"eat  losses,  you  can  see  from  the  pic- 
tures taken  after  the  fire  and  here  presented, 
that  it  left  the  district  on  which  Chicago  was 
built  about  as  bare  as  was  the  original  prairie. 
In  six  months  after  the  fire  everybody  seemed 
to  be  happy  and  prosperous.  Every  one  that 
had  property  could  borrow  money,  and  did,  and 
started  in  to  rebuild  Chicago  at  a  speed  near  as 
rapid  as  it  was  burned  down.  All  worked  over- 


THE  BIG  CHICAGO  FIRE  159 

time  and  seemed  to  have  money,  even  if  they 
had  to  borrow  it. 

From  what  the  people  learned  from  their 
fire  experience  and  the  new  building  restric- 
tions, Chicago  began  to  look  like  what  Chicago 
was  intended  to  be.  Every  one  was  talking  as 
though  it  were  a  blessing  that  the  fire  had  come, 
and,  as  Barney  0  'Flyhn  says, ' i  There  are  many 
things  worse  that  might  have  happened  to  us." 
And  this  was  one  of  the  great  consolations  in 
those  days.  When  neighbors  met  and  talked 
over  their  losses,  one  found  his  loss  so  small 
compared  with  his  neighbor  that  it  helped  him 
to  forget  his  trouble.  And  there  ye  have  it. 


160  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

ONE  OF  THE  SUN  WORSHIPERS  GONE  TO 
MEET  HIS  REWARD. 

"Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  Morris  O'Brien, 
'/last  week  was  a  sad  evint ;  we  lost  another  ould 
member  of  the  Sun  Worshipers'  Club  and  he 
was  an  active  member  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Thirty-first  Precinct  Republican 
Club,  one  Mike  McGee. 

1  <•  We  gave  him  a  funeral  and  a  wake  that  any 
man,  dead  or  alive,  should  be  proud  of.  And, 
as  ould  Devlin  said:  'While  Mike  was  alive  he 
many's  the  time  had  the  divil's  job  to  have  the 
street  car  stop  long  enough  to  (let  him  get 
aboard,  but  signs  on  it,  when  Mike  died  he  got 
even  with  the  street  car  company  and  the  motor- 
men.  For  while  his  funeral  was  wending  its 
way  from  39th  street  across  the  entire  West 
Side  of  the  city  on  its  way  to  Cavalry,  he 
blocked  every  street  car  line  he  passed  for  fully 
three-quarters  of  an  hour.' 

"  'Too  bad,'  said  Devlin,  'that  Mike  don't  see 
this  sight,  for  I  know  he  'd  enjoy  it. ' 

"Anyhow,  as  ould  Devlin  was  takin'  the  last 
look  at  Mike,  said  he  to  the  ould  woman:  'Did 
you  put  ever  a  dollar  in  his  pocket?'  'No,'  says 
she,  'I  don't  think  I  did.' 

"  'Well,'  says  Devlin,  'I  am  going  to  put  a 
dollar  in  Mike's  pocket  now,  for  I  never  see  him 
alive  without  it  and  I'm  not  goin'  to  have  it  said 
that  any  one  met  Mike  dead  without  it. ' 

"  'Well,'  said  an  ould  woman  who  was  pres- 


MET  His  REWARD  161 

ent,  'is  it  not  a  foolish  thing  to  be  puttin'  money 
in  a  dead  man's  clothes?' 

11  'Never  mind,'  says  Devlin,  'money  is  a 
handy  thing  to  have  dead  or  alive,  in  jail  or  out 
of  it,  and  it  may  be  consoling  to  Mike  to  know 
that  on  the  day  of  resurrection,  when  he  arises 
again  and  maybe  among  strangers,  that  he  still 
has  the  price.'  And  there  it's  for  ye." 


Old  Lake  Michigan. 


CHICAGO  AS  IT  LOOKED  IN  OTHER  DAYS. 

Chicago,  with  its  many  parks,  swimming 
pools  and  playgrounds  for  the  accommodation 
of  the  youth  of  today,  brings  up  the  question, 
where  did  the  young  folks  of  old  Chicago  find 
places  of  amusement  ? 

In  telling  this  story  I  will  only  describe  it  as 
I  remember  it,  dating  from  the  year  1862  to  the 
year  1870.  Chicago  in  those  days,  what  there 
was  of  it,  was  compact.  The  people  that  lived  on 
the  North  Side  lived  between  Halsted  street, 
Lake  Michigan,  Kinzie  street  and  Division 
street.  North  avenue  was  the  extreme  limit  on 
the  north,  and  very  few  homes  extended  up  that 
far. 

We  had  old  Lake  Michigan  as  our  swimming 
pool  from  North  avenue  on  the  north  to  what 


164  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

is  now  called  Grand  avenue  on  the  south.  They 
talk  now  about  the  Sand  Dunes  of  Indiana,  but 
these  never  could  be  compared  with  what  the 
banks  of  old  Lake  Michigan  looked  like  in  those 
days,  and  there  were  no  censors  or  regulators 
on  the  beaches. 

It  looked  as  wild  then  as  it  does  now  along 
the  Dunes  of  Indiana.  The  lake  was  not 
dredged  out  and  the  boys  could  wade  out  as  far 
as  what  we  called  the  third  sand  bar,  without 
going  over  their  heads,  and  this  distance  was  at 
least  one-half  mile  out  from  the  shore.  Thou- 
sands were  there  every  day  in  the  summer,  and 
say,  all  our  beautiful  swimming  pools  and  cen- 
sored bathing  beaches  of  today  looked,  as  the 
kids  say,  like  a  deuce  spot  when  compared. 
There  were  no  life  guards  needed,  and  we  never 
heard  tell  of  the  under  tow.  Nature  took  its 
time  in  making  this  old  swimming  pond,  and  the 
water  then  was  as  clear  and  blue  as  it  is  now 
two  miles  out  from  the  shore,  and  any  kind  of 
stockings  went  in  those  days. 

For  a  skating  park,  that  old  lake  before  it 
was  deepened  by  dredging,  froze  over  in  the 
winter  time  and  for  one  mile  out  from  the  shore 
it  was  as  smooth  as  glass.  For  a  skating  park 
there  is  nothing  like  it  today.  Now,  this  was  on 
the  east  side  of  North  Chicago,  while  on  the 
west  we  had  the  original  river  running  around 
the  west  side  of  what  is  now  called  Goose  Island. 
It  extended  north,  up  through  Clybourn  Woods, 


166  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


beyond  North  avenue.  Its  waters  came  in  from 
the  territory  of  the  northwest,  and  was  clear  as 
spring  water.  It  was  an  ideal  old-fashioned 
country  creek,  and  swimming  and  boating  was 
always  good  during  vacation  time  and  some- 
times when  it  was  not  vacation  time.  I  have 
tried  the  fancy  made  park  swimming  pool  and 
the  good  old  creek  water,  and  I  say,  give  me 
the  old  creek  as  the  old  north  branch  was  in 
those  days  for  good  fun.  In  the  winter 
navigation  was  closed,  and  the  north  branch 
river  to  North  avenue  was  one  long  skating 
pond  and  always  crowded  with  boys  and  girls. 
Every  one  of  them  was  his  or  her  own  boss,  no 
regulators  on  the  job  —  real  fun  and  freedom 
going  together.  This  was  God's  skating  park, 
and  there  were  no  Commissioners'  rules  to  reg- 
ulate things. 

So  much  about  the  North  Side,  and  now  about 
the  South  Side.  Twenty-sixth  street  was  the 
extreme  limit  on  the  South  Side  wherein  any 
great  number  of  people  lived.  Here  we  had  the 
same  old  Lake  Michigan,  with  the  same  condi- 
tions as  existed  on  the  North  Side  for  swim- 
ming in  the  summer  time  and  skating  in  the 
winter.  To  the  west,  we  had  the  old  South 
Branch  River,  coming  down  from  the  Des- 
plaines  River  together  with  the  waters  coming 
through  the  old  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal 
from  the  Illinois  River.  The  waters  in  those 
days  flowed  in  toward  the  lake  and  were  clean 
and  clear  as  crystal.  The  old  south  branch  of 


Halsted  Street   I.ii  l-I5ri.Ii;,-. 


168  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

the  Chicago  River  was  the  swimming  place  used 
by  the  boys  of  the  South  and  West  Sides  of 
the  city,  and  in  the  winter  it  was  used  for  skat- 
ing. In  those  days  navigation  closed  in  Novem- 
ber, so  that  when  the  rivers  got  frozen  over 
they  remained  that  way  until  spring,  and  any 
day  there  could  be  seen  thousands  of  skaters 
along  the  old  South  Brunch  Eiver  from  Madi- 
son street  out  southwest  to  the  old  Mud  Lake 
at  Ashland  avenue. 

The  scenery  along  the  river  was  beautiful. 
The  0  'Neill  Woods,  a  forty-acre  tract  of  heavy 
timber  land,  fronted  the  north  bank  of  the  Chi- 
cago River,  west  from  Halsted  street.  Piper's 
Woods  was  along  the  north  bank  east  from 
Ashland  avenue,  and  this  was  about  a  sixty-acre 
tract  of  heavy  timber  land.  All  along  the  Mud 
Lake  from  Ashland  avenue,  west  to  Kedzie  ave- 
nue, was  equally  as  rich  in  scenery,  with  splen- 
did farms,  orchards,  and  homes  built  along  its 
banks.  So  that  in  the  good  old  early  days  of 
Chicago  we  had  our  parks  and  skating  pools  as 
God  made  them,  while  all  the  money  spent  today 
in  producing  them  makes  but  poor  imitations. 

For  fishing  and  hunting  the  boys  did  not 
have  to  go  far  out  from  the  city.  In  the  old  Cly- 
bourn  Woods,  O'Neill's  Woods  and  the  Piper's 
Woods,  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  the  wild  pigeon 
came  in  so  thick  and  fast  you  could  shoot  hun- 
dreds of  them  in  an  hour.  You  don't  see  any 
of  these  nowadays  while  hunting,  but  in  those 
days  they  were  so  plentiful  in  the  fall  of  the 


Urine    of    the    White    Snx. 


The    "Two    Finger   Times". 


170 


MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


year  you  could  knock  them  with  sticks  in  those 
woods.  And  on  the  prairie,  where  the  City 
Bridewell  now  stands,  could  be  seen  any  day 
in  the  fall  thousands  of  wild  ducks  and  geese  in 
the  marshes  there.  And  along  the  banks  of  the 
old  river,  on  the  North  Side,  north  of  North 
avenue,  and  on  the  South  Side,  west  of  Ashland 
avenue,  known  as  Mud  Lake,  and  up  the  south- 


Chicagro  River  Scene. 

west  branch  of  the  river  that  is  now  called  Bub- 
bly Creek,  the  banks  of  these  rivers  were  lined 
with  hazel  brush,  crab  apple  trees,  and  wild 
strawberries. 

In  looking  this  over  today,  a  person  would 
think  this  a  fairy  story,  but  nevertheless  it  is 
true.  Many  the  melon  patch  and  orchard  was 
tapped  in  those  days  by  the  boys  without  the 


CHICAGO  IN  OTHER  DAYS  171 

permission  of  the  owners.  If  it  were  possible 
to  bring  back  a  true  picture  of  the  old  lake  front 
from  North  avenue  to  Twenty-sixth  street,  and 
the  original  Chicago  Eiver  from  Ashland  ave- 
nue on  the  North  Side  to  Kedzie  avenue  on  the 
Southwest  Side,  what  a  battle  the  people  would 
put  up  to  retain  it !  But  in  the  march  of  enter- 
prise, Chicago  as  nature  made  her  was  fast  dis- 
appearing as  far  back  as  1870,  but  don't  ever 
think  that  the  boys  of  the  early  days  of  Chicago 
did  not  find  as  many  places  to  amuse  them- 
selves in  out-of-door  sports  as  you  can  point  to 
today.  And  there  you  have  it. 


Ryan's   Inspiration 


NICHOLAS  RYAN  IN  A  PATRIOTIC  MOOD. 

"McKenna,"  said  Nicholas  Ryan,  the  stati- 
stician of  the  Sun  Worshipers'  Club,  "I  just 
want  to  say  a  few  words  to  you  on  our  plan  of 
government,  then  I  will  take  the  advice  of  old 
Fitz.  the  Tailor,  when  he  hit  the  Italian  on  the 
head  with  his  shillaleh,  "Sit  down,  you,'  said 
Fitz.,  'you  said  enough.' 

"This  is  the  proper  time  to  say  it.  It's  our 
plan  of  government,  and  that's  all  that  makes 
America  the  best  land  on  earth  to  live  in,  and 
we  ought  to  appreciate  it  more  than  we  do. 

"When  the  founders  of  this  government  saw 
fit  to  withdraw  from  England,  it  was  the  plan 
of  government  they  had  in  mind.  They  knew 
well  the  withdrawal  from  the  Mother  Country 
would  not  change  the  severe  climate  of  New 
England,  nor  would  it  make  plowing  and  till- 
ing of  stony  hills  any  the  easier,  but  it  would 
give  contentment  to  their  hearts  and  minds  if 
they  could  perfect  a  plan  of  government  that 
would  give  to  them  the  right  to  elect  the  men 
that  would  make  the  laws  under  which  they 


174  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

would  have  to  live.  The  right  to  worship  their 
God  as  they  saw  fit,  the  equality  of  man  before 
the  law,  and  the  protection  of  their  property 
rights,  that's  what  our  plan  of  government  has 
accomplished,  and  we  have  enjoyed  its  privi- 
leges for  the  past  one  hundred  and  forty-one 
years,  and  it's  the  best  plan  of  government  that 
ever  was  handed  down  to  mankind;  and  there 
it's  for  you. 

' '  Tho  men  that  signed  that  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence and  adopted  the  Star-Spangled 
Banner  as  the  emblem  to  represent  their  plan 
of  government,  they  knew  full  well  if  they  failed 
in  their  undertaking  it  meant  the  sacrifice  of 
their  lives  and  property. 

"Now,  in  this,  our  day,  in  this  land  of  Amer- 
ica, when  men  so  forget  themselves  as  to  raise 
any  other  sign  or  emblem  in  a  political  way  but 
that  adopted  flag,  they  should  be  shown  that 
that  which  they  are  doing  is  not  freedom  but 
an  insult  to  the  memory  of  those  men  that  gave 
to  us  our  plan  of  government. 

"There  are  some  of  them  that  speak  so  fool- 
ishly that  they  try  to  convince  you  that  all  you 
would  have  to  do  is  to  get  the  majority  of  our 
Congress  and  a  President  to  your  way  of  think- 
ing, and  that  you  could  change  the  flag  and  the 
plan  of  government.  That's  all  in  your  eye; 
that's  theory,  Mac.  The  divil  the  change  will 
any  person  or  ism  do  to  that  flag  or  our  plan  of 
government  by  any  chance  voting  or  upheaval 
until  every  one  that  loves  that  old  flag  and  our 


RYAN  IN  PATRIOTIC  MOOD  175 

plan  of  government  is  down  and  their  tongues 
sticking  out  a  yard. 

"And  as  Barney  O'Flynn  says,  'May  the  last 
thing  that  the  Angel  Gabriel  goes  lookin'  for  on 
the  day  of  the  destruction  of  the  world  be  our 
old  flag  and  our  plan  of  government, '  and  I  say 
'Amen'  to  Barney's  wish. 

"And  as  sure  as  I  am  tellin'  you,  any  one  that 
advocates  that  kind  of  doings  or  isms,  that's 
not  freedom;  that's  insult  to  the  memory  of 
them  that  have  won  a  place  in  our  hearts  that 
will  never  die. 

"Our  old  flag;  when  the  seamen  of  old  saw 
it  wave  to  the  breeze  they  said:  'That's  the 
emblem  of  the  plan  of  government  of  the  young 
republic  beyond  the  sea  and  for  the  great 
masses  of  the  petople' — I  have  statistics  to  show 
it  was  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  then  wonders 
of  the  world.  It  was  the  hope  that  was  burning 
in  the  hearts  of  all  the  lovers  of  freedom  in 
every  land.  And  its  invisible  sign  seemed  to 
beckon  to  them  all  and  say,  'Ye  that  love  free- 
dom, come  unto  me  and  your  expectation  will 
be  more  than  satisfied,'  and  so  for  a  hundred 
and  forty-one  years  that  old  flag  has  so  beck- 
oned to  all  the  oppressed  of  the  world,  and  they 
that  have  come  have  had  their  greatest  hopes 
realized.  And  this  old  plan  of  government  of 
ours  has  brought  more  contentment  and  more 
happiness  into  the  world  than  any  other  one 
thing  that  has  been  originated  by  mankind. 

"Freedom  has  been  so  free  under  our  plan  of 
government  that  to  some  it  has  lost  its  sacred- 


176  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

ness ;  but,  like  all  our  best  friends,  we  only  ap- 
preciate their  true  worth  when  they  have  gone 
from  us.  May  this  never  be  so  with  our  plan  of 
government  or  the  flag  that  represents  it. 

' '  The  men  that  gave  to  us  our  plan  of  govern- 
ment started  with  very  little  of  this  world's 
goods,  and  from  the  bleak  cold  shores  of  the 
states  along  the  New  England  coast  worked 
their  way  across  the  continent,  and  today  we 
have  over  one  hundred  millions  of  people  that 
are  more  prosperous  and  have  more  freedom 
than  any  people  living  anywhere  on  this  earth. 

"And  those  that  represent  us  in  every  depart- 
ment of  our  plan  of  government,  we  put  them 
there,  with  our  own  free  will,  by  our  ballot,  and, 
if  we  don't  approve  of  their  way  of  doing,  then 
we  have  the  same  privilege  with  our  own  free 
will,  through  our  ballot,  to  replace  them  with 
others.  And  in  this  sacred  right  we  are  their 
peers.  The  rich  and  poor  alike  enjoy  the  same 
privilege,  the  one  vote,  man  for  man ;  and  still 
we  are  kicking.  And  there  you  have  it. 

"A  new  generation  could  live  and  arrive  at 
the  same  junction  of  freedom  and  prosperity  as 
we  have  today  if  all  we  now  possess  were  to  be 
destroyed  if  only  they  were  left  to  continue  to 
live  under  our  plan  of  government.  But  there's 
the  rub ;  them  that  would  have  the  power  to  de- 
stroy our  property  would  know  that  that  would 
be  but  a  secondary  consideration.  The  next 
thing  they  would  do  would  be  to  destroy  our 
plan  of  government.  That's  the  thing  that 


EYAN  IN  PATRIOTIC  MOOD  177 

would  do  the  job.  For  in  destroying  this  they 
would  kill  contentment  and  pride  and  the 
equality  of  man  before  the  law  and  the  right  to 
worship  God  as  you  see  fit.  And  with  such  a 
people  as  we  are,  raised  in  the  atmosphere  of 
freedom,  this  would  dim  our  hopes,  and  hope  is 
our  very  existence. 

' '  That  was  why,  in  that  great  mind  of  Francis 
Scott  Key,  when  he  gave  vent  to  the  thought  in 
that  patriotic  song,  'The  Star-Spangled  Ban- 
ner': 

"  'The  rockets'  red  glare,  the  bombs  bursting  in 

air, 
Gave  proof  through  the  night  that  our  flag  was 

still  there. 

0  say,  does  that  star-spangled  banner  still  wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the 

brave?' 

' '  The  great  fear  was  not  the  loss  of  the  flag, 
but  the  plan  of  government  which  that  flag  rep- 
resented. It  would  be  very  easy  to  replace  a 
flag,  but  on  that  solemn  occasion  if  that  flag 
went  down  so  went  down  with  it  our  plan  of 
government,  and  that  is  why  today  we  want  to 
see  that  old  flag  on  high,  for  the  men  that  would 
cause  that  to  fall  would  destroy  the  plan  of  gov- 
ernment that  it  represents.  And  there  you 
have  it. 

"If  there  is  any  wrong  existing  under  our 
plan  of  government,  who  brought  it  about,  and 
who  is  to  blame  for  its  continuance1?  We,  the 


178  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

people,  are.  For  with  our  own  free  will,  under 
our  plan  of  government,  a  majority  of  the  free 
citizens  must  give  their  consent,  through  the 
ballot,  the  privilege  to  their  representatives  to 
create  the  laws  under  which  we  live.  Where 
on  earth  is  there  any  other  such  a  plan  of  gov- 
ernment given  to  a  people? 

* '  There  will  never  come  a  time  while  this  old 
world  bobs  around  where  any  plan  of  govern- 
ment will  meet  with  the  approval  of  everybody. 
We  don't  all  see  through  the  same  glasses. 
What  to  some  looks  to  be  the  only  way,  to 
others  that  same  viewpoint,  the  more  argu- 
ments and  statistics  you  present  in  its  favor 
the  farther  they  would  be  away  from  it.  And 
so  it  will  be  until  Gabriel  blows  his  horn.  And 
there  it's  for  you. 

"There  is  not  a  man  in  America  today,  no 
matter  what  country  gave  him  birth,  whether 
he  be  a  scholar  or  a  poor  laborer,  if  he  just  re- 
flects in  this  our  hour  of  anxiety,  give  way  to 
his  mind  and  heart,  and  let  come  back  to  him 
the  thought  that  first  entered  his  mind  and 
heart  the  day  that  his  eyes  first  met  the  star- 
spangled  banner,  the  emblem  of  Free  America, 
then  that  person  will  find  the  answer  comes 
bounding  back  to  him,  'I  am  with  America 
against  the  world'. 

"And  with  all  of  us,  we  have  the  hyphen  that 
is  born  in  us  and  seemingly  over  which  we  have 
no  control.  You  may  laugh  at  this,  but  it  is 
true.  Its  both  of  a  foreign  and  domestic  made 


RYAN  IN  PATRIOTIC  MOOD  179 

type.  For  instance,  where  is  there  an  Indianaii 
that  has  not  a  friendly  hyphen  working  in  him 
for  a  fellow  Indianan?  And  where  is  the  man 
from  Dixie  Land  that  has  not  a  hyphen  in  him 
for  one  from  Dixie?  And  the  eastern  and  New 
England  hyphen  is  as  active  as  any  of  them 
for  their  fellow  townsmen.  And  so  it  is  with 
the  foreign  hyphen.  A  blind  man  could  see  the 
hyphen  working  in  them  all  the  day  the  White 
Sox  won  the  championship. 

"Well,  with  us  all,  we  occasionally  find  fault 
with  things  in  our  own  homes  and  say  things 
that  we  would  not  like  outsiders  to  say,  and  to- 
day we  find  many  a  stone  being  cast  that  it 
would  be  better  for  us  all  if  they  were  let  re- 
main, on  the  stone  pile.  But,  with  all  that 
every  one  knows  our  plan  of  government  has 
been  that  free,  like  a  good  mothers  love,  its 
greatest  loss  and  appreciation  would  come  if 
we  were  to  lose  it.  So  this  is  the  time  for  our 
every  act  and  deed  to  be  in  keeping  with  the 
sentiment  represented  by  our  flag.  That's  the 
kind  of  a  hyphen  we  all  want  now,  and  keep  it 
working  overtime.  And  as  Barney  Mulligan 
says,  'There  'tis  till  ye.'  " 


180  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 


MIND  PICTURES. 

Where  Power  and  Oppression 

Ride  side  by  side, 
Laws  have  gone  and  Love  has  died, 

Discontent  and  disunion 

On  every  hand, 
Hope  is  dead  in  such  a  land. 

Dependents  are  the  seed 

That  powers  sow 
Then  create  conditions  to  make  them  grow. 

Where  dependents  flourish 

There  is  no  pride 
Lackeys  seen  on  every  side, 
Independence  too  weak  to  raise  its  head 

With  Liberty  gone  and  Justice  dead. 

When  Wealth  and  Power  ride  side  by  side 

When  Wealth  has  gone 

Power  has  died. 

Whe're  Power  brings  Justice 

That's  a  happy  land! 
Contented  people  on  every  side 

With  love  of  Country 

Their  joy  and  pride. 

In  a  land  like  ours — if  we  only  knew 
Its  Constitution  through  and  through 
Then  did  our  duty  as  we  ought  to  do 

As  Freedom's  sons  we'd  always  see 

Independence  strong  and  Justice  free. 

Conditions  fhat  would  make  dependents  grow 

In  this  free  land  would  have  no  show. 

—John  J,  McKenna, 


ANTHONY   DEVLIN   ON   "THE   OLD   DAYS 
OF   POLITICS." 

"Begorra,  McKenna,"  says  old  Anthony 
Devlin,  "I  was  glad  to  read  in  the  last  week's 
issue  of  PUBLIC  SAFETY,  that  your  statistician, 
Nicholas  Ryan,  gave  out  his  announcement  that 
he  was  going  to  take  timely  advice  and  stop  his 
talking,  for  surely  he  has  said  enough.  He, 
with  his  statistics,  the  Daily  News  Almanac  and 
the  Bible,  has  kept  the  Sun  Worshipers'  Club 
on  edge  all  summer  below  at  the  park.  Any- 
how in  my  rummaging  among  some  ould  papers 
at  home,  I  run  across  this  ballot ;  I  now  show  it 
to  you.  It's  a  ballot  that  was  cast  in  one  of  the 
old-fashioned  primary  elections,  at  the  time 
when  the  late  Geo.  B.  Swift  was  Mayor  of  Chi- 
cago. It's  a  reminder  of  a  battle  royal  that 
took  place  between  the  Swift  machine,  with 
Perry  H.  Hull  as  the  Swift  campaign  manager, 
against  the  Lorimer-Hertz  organization;  it 
was  war  from  the  time  the  polls  opened  at  1 
P.  M.  until  they  closed  at  7  P.  M.  Now  this  was 
in  the  good  old  days  before  civil  service  was  in 


182  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

working  order.  The  Mayor  in  those  days  was  a 
power,  everything  in  town  was  wide  open,  the 
word  reform  was  not  invented,  and  this  Mayor 
was  an  apt  scholar  in  the  game  of  politics.  But 
so  were  Lorimer  and  Hertz;  everything  of  in- 
fluence and  every  meal  ticket  holder  was  or- 
dered to  be  on  duty.  The  order  from  headquar- 
ters was:  'You  deliver  the  goods  or  report  at 
headquarters  tonight  and  return  your  meal 
ticket,  with  all  the  privilege  that  it  commands.' 
That  meant  something,  there  were  no  slackers, 
they  all  knew  what  the  order  meant,  'and  that 
goes',  said  the  order  from  the  Chief  of  Police, 
clear  through  to  the  last  man  holding  a  privi- 
lege under  the  city  administration.  Perry  H. 
Hull  was  no  small  leader,  both  sides  were  ex- 
pert in  the  game  and  there  was  no  limit  to  their 
bank  roll;  hence  strategy  as  well  as  physical 
force  had  to  be  used  in  order  to  win.  If  you 
beat  the  other  fellow  in  that  day,  you  had  to 
have  the  goods,  and  if  you  cheated,  you  had  to 
be  able  to  lick  the  other  fellow  in  order  to  get 
away  with  it.  The  power  of  the  city  authorities, 
with  what  they  had  at  command  in  that  day, 
would  be  no  job  for  a  sick  man  to  go  up  against, 
but  the  'Lo rimer-Hertz  organization',  with  its 
following  won  the  day.  And  here  is  the  ticket 
that  won  the  day,  in  one  of  the  primary  dis- 
tricts. 

There  were  seen  fellows  riding  around  in  car- 
riages that  day  that  you  could  tell  were  never 
in  a  carriage  before,  except  when  they  were  at- 
tending a  funeral.  At  this  polling  place  about 


ALTERNATES'  DAY  183 

ten  minutes  to  1  P.  M.  there  drove  up,  six  car- 
riages loaded  with  old-time  gamblers  from  the 
First  Ward.  Some  one  said  to  them:  'Ain't 
you  lost"?  'No',  said  a  lot  of  them,  'we  came 
out  to  show  you  fellows  something. '  Then  they 
began  bossing  around,  and  telling  the  judges  of 
election  where  to  get  off  at.  Some  one  said: 
'  You  fellows  are  taking  your  lives  in  your  hands 
in  coming  out  here;  do  you  know  where  you 
are1?'  Then  they  became  very  bossy.  'Well,' 
said  one  that  knew  them,  'You  got  advice,  but 
if  you  don't  take  it  now,  we  won't  be  able  to 
save  you  in  a  few  minutes ! '  Just  at  the  tap  of 
1  P.  M.  about  two  hundred  healthy  looking 
alternates  and  their  followers,  led  by  John  Cu- 
sick,  business  manager  of  the  Brickmakers' 
Union,  came  on  the  scene.  'What's  all  this 
about?'  said  he,  looking  at  the  carriages.  Some 
one  said  something;  then  every  window  in  the 
carriages,  with  their  loads,  received  a  shower  of 
whole  and  half  bricks.  Oh !  what  a  sight.  The 
imported  First  Ward  fighters  began  to  try  and 
explain  and  say  they  made  a  mistake  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  it  was  too  late.  This  was 
'Alternates'  Day',  and  they  won  in  a  walk.  All 
the  money  in  Chicago  couldn't  induce  that  old 
First  Ward  bunch  to  come  back  to  Archer  Road. 
The  old  hack  drivers  were  glad  to  get  the  privi- 
lege of  taking  away  with  them  what  was  left  of 
the  old  carriages. 

The  alternates  were  well  organized  and  had 
been  holding  meetings  every  night  for  two 
weeks  checking  up  the  poll  list.  Our  pledge 


184  McKENNA's  STORIES 

was :  '  One  for  all,  and  all  for  one ;  no  scratch- 
ing of  the  ticket  to  be  done ;  we  will  win  or  lose 
together.'  This  alternate  business  may  look  to 
be  a  joke,  but  there  were  eighty  substantial 
old  citizens  and  property  holders ;  ninety  per 
cent  of  them  had  lived  in  the  country  from 
twenty  to  fifty  years  and  never  were  honored 
before  in  a  political  way  as  a  candidate  for  any 
office,  and  the  word  'Alternate'  looked  just  as 
good  to  them  as  the  word  "Delegate'. 

The  ticket  here  presented  was  voted  upon  this 
day;  it  is  number  twenty,  or  the  twentieth  bal- 
lot that  was  cast  on  that  day.  It  was  about 
twenty  years  ago,  and,  strange  to  say,  in  look- 
ing over  the  list  of  names  printed  on  the  ticket, 
fifty-five  of  them  have  passed  into  the  world 
beyond : ' ' 

REGULAR   REPUBLICAN   DELEGATE 

TICKET 
Twenty-eighth  Ward 

FOURTH    PRIMARY   DISTRICT 

Precincts — 4th,  5th  and  8th. 

Polling  Place  2037  Thirty-eighth  Street— Polls 

Open  Wednesday,  October  2nd,  from  1 

to  7  P.  M. 

Delegate 
JOHN  J.   McKENNA. 

Alternates 

Thos.  Rankin,  M.  K.  Deal, 

Edward  Brandt,  John  McKay, 


ALTERNATES'  DAY 


185 


John  Shellbamer, 
John  Cusick, 
David  Burnham, 
Joseph  Boufford, 
Joseph  Emond, 
J.  F.  Rhodes, 
John  L.  Baker, 
Michael  Donley, 
James  Shatkey, 
Octave  Boufford, 
Joseph  Butler, 
Charles  Armstrong, 
Isadore  Leabeau, 
Chester  Buffington, 
Ed.  Francis, 
Frank  Irwin, 
T.  Moran, 

Joseph  Cunningham, 
John  R.  Lauery, 
John  Fox, 
John  McGrath, 
R.  Travis, 
James  Burnhill, 
George  Irwin, 
A.  Lynch, 
James  Leggate, 
D.  F.  O'Neill, 
Richard  Shaw, 
William  Lenze, 
Frank  O'Neill, 
Ed.  Stone, 
Daniel  H.  Crane, 


Henry  Volk, 
J.  R.  Wiggins, 
David  A.  Baker, 
Alfred  Boufford, 
Robert  Brandt, 
William  Boxley, 
James  Lynch, 
Jacobs  Frank, 
Thos.  Younghusband, 
William  Daniels, 
John  Pauliott, 
William  Goodfriend, 
William  Boxley, 
Louis  Williams, 
Chas.  Conrodice, 
Frank  Kupsheiver, 
James  MacLaughlin, 
D.  E.  Mullen, 
M.  Beichold, 
Ed.  Neary, 
Jos.  Caulombe, 
Gustave  Endler, 
John  Dooner, 
Joseph  Couerville, 
John  Noonan, 
Wm.  J.  McKenna, 
Michael  Foley, 
Henry  Doerr, 
William  Burns, 
Christ  Heise, 
William  Wibberley, 
Robert  McKay, 


186  McKENNA's  STORIES 

P.  Cassidy,  Frank  McGuire, 

William  McKenna,  S.  Englender, 

P.  Hilb,  D.  Saporia, 

Charles  Snider,  C.  Chadow, 

R.  S.  Hellyer,  Lewis  Mattson. 

A.  T.  Irwin,  W.  A.  Chadow, 

But  that  day  their  enthusiasm  was  so 
great,  and  they  worked  so  hard,  they  brought 
to  the  polls  and  voted  more  persons  as  Repub- 
licans, in  those  three  precincts  mentioned  than 
there  lived  in  the  entire  Twenty-eighth  Ward. 
As  they  received  their  blue  tickets  for  the  gal- 
lery of  the  convention  to  be  held  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  Napoleon's  old  guard  was  never  as 
happy  after  victory  as  were  those  alternates 
after  their  victory. 

"Their  battle  cry  was:  'Did  we  win?  Well, 
well,  well,  I  should  say  we  did!'  When  Judge 
Carter  looked  at  the  ticket  he  shook  his  head 
and  said:  'Too  much  alternate'  and  he  had  the 
law  changed  to  read  'One  alternate  for  one 
delegate'. 

"But  with  all  that,  McKenna,  those  were  the 
days  of  real  sport  in  politics,  when  everybody 
in  the  neighborhood  took  a  part  and  thought 
they  had  something  to  say  in  the  management 
of  their  party  affairs.  And  there  ye  have  it. ' ' 


M'KENNA'S  CANDIDACY  FOR  CHAPLAIN. 

"Begorra,  Devlin,"  says  Barney  O'Flynn, 
"McKenna  is  all  right  while  he  sticks  to  his 
alternates  arid  the  primary  elections,  but  on  the 
occasion  I  have  in  mind  he  met  his  Waterloo. 
It  was  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  at  the  session  of 
the  Forty-third  General  Assembly.  I  will  never 
forget  the  time.  John  C.  Righeimer  and  Al 
Houseman,  two  of  the  leading  buffet  owners  of 
Chicago,  had  cards  printed  announcing  Mac's 
candidacy  for  Chaplain  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. The  campaign  became  that  warm 
during  the  first  three  nights  of  the  canvass  that 
the  lights  in  the  saloons  in  Springfield  were 
kept  going  in  full  blast  during  the  whole  of 
three  nights.  It  made  my  job  as  air  inlet  in- 
spector of  the  Forty-third  General  Assembly  a 
very  unpleasant  task.  The  duty  of  an  air  inlet 
inspector  was  to  see  that  sufficient  air  was  per- 
mitted to  circulate  throughout  the  assembly 
room  for  the  comfort  of  the  members.  It  was 
the  divil  of  a  task  to  satisfy  them.  There  were 
the  wet  members,  and  they  would  be  so  warmed 


188  McKENNA's  STORIES 

up  after  their  night's  canvass  that  you  could 
not  furnish  air  enough  to  cool  them  off,  while 
the  drys  kept  up  the  cry :  *  Shut  off  the  air — you 
have  us  perished  with  the  cold.' 

''Well,  sir,  it  was  hard  to  please  them.  No 
matter  what  you  did  you  were  in  danger  of 
offending  some  one  of  them.  It  was  like  the 
job  my  friend  Ned  Hayes  had  below  in  the  tun- 
nel. Says  Ned,  'I  have  what  they  call  a  po- 
litical job— inspecting  below  in  the  tunnel — 
where  there  is  but  very  little  room.  They  have 
there  at  pulling  the  little  car  a  Jack  that  kicks 
at  one  end  and  bites  at  the  other,  and,  begorra', 
says  Ned,  'no  matter  which  way  I  turn  my  life 
is  in  danger'.  And  so  it  was  with  me,  for  no 
matter  what  move  I  made  to  supply  them  with 
fresh  air,  my  job  was  in  jeopardy. 

"Anyhow,  I  was  as  well  pleased  as  any  one 
of  them  when  the  announcement  came  of  Mc- 
Kenna's  withdrawal  as  candidate  for  chaplain, 
for  if  his  campaign  managers  were  to  keep  the 
members  out  a  few  nights  more  I  would  have 
lost  my  job  as  air  inlet  inspector.  My  job,  in 
real  plain  language,  was  raising  and  lowering 
the  windows,  but  the  title  air  inlet  inspector 
gave  tone  to  the  job;  like  corn  doctors  and  nail 
trimmers— they  call  themselves  chiropodists 
and  manicurists. 

"Well,  sir,  politics  is  very  deceiving.  From 
all  appearance  at  the  time,  everything  was  in 
McKenna's  favor.  All  the  Chicago  newspapers 
had  headlines  announcing  his  canvass.  His 


SHAKE  HANDS — MAKE  No  PROMISES      189 

campaign  managers  and  all  the  horse  racing 
men  that  were  in  town  were  trying  to  outdo 
each  other  in  the  buying  of  drinks  for  his  suc- 
cess. This  campaign  was  the  talk  of  the  town. 
There  never  was  as  much  money  spent  or  as 
many  drinks  bought  before  on  the  occasion  of 
a  chaplain  being  selected.  Every  saloon  keeper 
in  town  was  with  him,  for,  as  they  said,  'he  was 
the  only  candidate  for  chaplain  that  was  around 
to  see  them '.  He  had  the  veterans  of  the  Span- 
ish-American war  with  him.  The  card  announc- 
ing his  candidacy  won  for  him  the  approval  of 
all  the  labor  organizations,  as  it  had  the  union 
label  on  it  as  big  as  a  horseshoe.  Some  of  the 
opposition  at  the  time  said,  for  a  person  that 
did  as  little  work  in  his  day  as  he  did,  he  made 
a  great  display  of  his  generosity  in  the  use  of 
the  union  label.  Anyhow,  his  campaign  man- 
agers, Righeimer  and  Houseman,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  William  J.  Cooke,  the  then  superin- 
tendent of  the  West  Park  system,  left  nothing 
undone  to  bring  about  success  for  him.  At  the 
head  of  the  Democratic  members  they  marched 
up  the  street  from  the  St.  Nicholas  to  the  Le- 
land  Hotel,  there  to  join  hands  with  the  Repub- 
lican members  in  making  his  selection  a  non- 
partisan  affair. 

1 '  To  the  strangers  and  visitors  in  town  things 
were  looking  very  strange,  as  there  was  a  lot  of 
stage  money  being  passed  around  very  care- 
lessly in  the  corridors  of  the  hotels.  To  some  of 
the  new  members  and  visitors  in  town  who  were 


190  McKENNA's  STORIES 

not  on,  it  was  very  suspicious  looking.  And,  as 
it  went  the  rounds  from  one  to  the  other,  the 
promoters  would  say:  'Use  all  of  it  you  can,  but 
use  it  judiciously'. 

"The  Eev.  Mr.  Turner,  the  Methodist  Church 
candidate,  had  his  card  announcing  that  he  was 
a  Methodist  and  a  Eepublican  for  the  past  for- 
ty-six years,  but  he  had  forgot  to  have  the  union 
label  put  on  his  card.  When  he  saw  the  stage 
money  passing  hands,  he  said  with  sarcasm: 
'I  would  like  to  hear  that  gentleman  recite  the 
prayer  that  makes  him  so  popular'. 

"The  Eev.  Mr.  Bradford  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  who  had  been  chaplain  for  years  and 
who  knew  what  little  pay  there  was  in  it  for  the 
service  rendered,  looked  with  contempt  on  the 
men  that  were  distributing  money  for  a  position 
with  so  little  pay  attached  to  it. 

"Anyhow,  there  must  be  an  end  to  every- 
thing, and  so  it  was  with  this.  The  canvass  be- 
came so  warm  and  the  managers  so  enthusiastic 
and  careless  in  the  use  of  the  stage  money,  that 
the  question  of  'denomination'  came  up  for  dis- 
cussion and  consideration;  and  here  is  where 
Mac  met  his  Waterloo.  His  only  record  was  a 
camp  meeting  record,  and  when  he  answered 
the  inquiry  as  to  the  kind  of  a  prayer  he  would 
recite  if  he  was  selected,  his  answer  was  his 
downfall.  He  said  that  when  he  would  hear  a. 
bill  read,  and  seeing  from  where  it  came,  he 
could  tell  if  prayer  alone  could  save  it.  This 
offended  one  of  the  celebrated  members  from 


SHAKE  HANDS — MAKE  No  PROMISES      191 

Chicago,  Gus  Nohe.  He  immediately  jumped 
up  and  cried  out:  'Mr.  Speaker,  I  demand  the 
withdrawal  of  that  candidate's  name,  or  I  will 
move  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  investi- 
gate his  camp  meeting  record.  That  man,'  said 
Nohe,  'is  like  Billy  Sunday,  for  he  is  trying  to 
make  religion  pay,  and  should  not  be  encour- 
aged.' 

"I  saw  right  off  the  reel  that  the  jig  was  up. 
I  didn't  blame  McKenna  for  his  sudden  with- 
drawal, as  Nohe  would  have  had  the  committee 
appointed  for  investigation.  Not  that  I  mean 
to  say  that  anything  wrong  would  be  found  in 
Mac's  camp  meeting  record,  but,  as  Barney 
Mulligan  says,  '  Safety  first  always '. 

"And  the  saddest  part  of  this  tale  is  that 
neither  of  the  candidates  in  the  contest  for 
chaplain  succeeded,  as  John  H.  Miller  of  Ham- 
ilton county  was  elected  Speaker  of  the  House 
and  brought  with  him  the  Rev.  M.  N.  Powers  to 
do  the  job." 


"TIMES  ARE  CHANGED"— DWYER  TO  MAC. 

"Begorra,  McKenna,"  said  Dennis  Dwyer, 
president  of  the  Thirty-fifth  Precinct  Bepub- 
lican  Club,  "there's  a  great  change  come  over 
the  population  of  Chicago.  It's  the  divil  to 
think  of  it.  There  was  a  time  when  a  man 
walking  or  riding  through  the  streets  of  Chi- 
cago, with  every  face  you'd  meet  looking  so  fa- 
miliar, you'd  think  you  were  acquainted,  and, 
as  you  passed  by,  it  would  be  a  'How  dy',  or  a 
nod  at  least.  But  now,  in  your  travels,  your 
eyes  are  strained  and  your  neck  crimped  look- 
ing to  see  if  there  are  any  of  them  who  pass  you 
by  that  remind  you  of  any  person  you  ever  saw, 
but  divil  the  one  in  ten  thousand  of  them  did 
you  ever  see  signs  or  tidin  's  of  before.  "With  all 
the  war  talk  and  killing  that  we  read  about  you 
would  wonder  where  the  divil  they  all  come 
from,  but  they're  here,  however  they  get  here. 
And  they've  their  votin'  papers  and  are  asking 


194  McKENNA's  STORIES 

questions  of  information  and  raisin'  points  of 
orders  at  our  meetings. 

"But  it's  a  bad  wind  that's  not  favorable  to 
some  one.  Anyhow,  I  find  that  in  the  Thirty- 
fifth  Precinct  Club,  with  the  exception  of  about 
six  of  us  Irishmen,  the  club  has  a  majority  of 
foreigners.  And  it's  the  divil  to  keep  them  in 
the  minority. 

"This  war  has  brought  a  change  over  them 
all.  Before  the  war  we  could  hold  the  Bohe- 
mians and  the  Germans  on  the  personal  liberty 
question,  but  since  the  war  began  they  are  at 
swords'  points. 

"The  Jews  and  the  regular  Russians,  we 
could  always  depend  on  keepin'  them  on  oppo- 
site sides  through  natural  prejudices,  but  since 
the  Eussian  revolution  they  are  huggin'  one 
another,  and  it's  the  divil  to  manage  them  now. 

Foreigners  are  all  right,  Mac,  when  you  have 
them  educated  to  know  they  are  in  the  minority, 
but  when  they  learn  they  are  in  the  majority 
you  have  to  be  buying  them  drinks  all  the  time 
to  keep  harmony  in  the  club. 

"We  near  ended  in  a  row  at  our  last  meeting. 
There  came  up  the  question  as  to  whether  Pat- 
rick Price  or  one  of  the  foreigners  should  be 
endorsed  by  the  club  for  an  appointment  in  the 
Water  Pipe  Extension  Department.  They  had 
us  beat  by  one  vote,  so  all  that  was  left  for  me 
to  do  was  to  declare  the  motion  out  of  order. 
Then  the  row  commenced.  Up  jumped  little 
Jimmy  Dugan  with  the  flag  in  his  hand,  wav- 


TIMES  ABE  CHANGED  195 

ing  it,  and  said  he,  'This  is  no  time  for  disloy- 
alty or  disunion. '  And  with  that  up  jumped  one 
of  the  foreigners  to  object,  seconded  by  another, 
saying,  'Ye  are  using  the  flag  for  "advanta- 
geous purposes",'  whatever  that  means. 

"This  was  our  chance.  Dugan  said,  'Men 
usin'  that  language  against  the  flag  at  this  time 
are  disloyal  and  not  fit  for  membership  in  the 
Thirty-fifth  Precinct  Club.'  And  without  fur- 
ther debate  I  put  the  motion  and  Dugan  sec- 
onded it.  We  suspended  both  of  the  objectors 
from  membership  in  the  club.  This  gave  us  a 
majority  of  one  vote  and  saved  the  day  for  Pat 
Price.  Anyhow,  everything  is  fair  in  love  and 
war. ' ' 


MEMBERS    OF    SUN    WORSHIPERS'    CLUB 
IN    CONFAB. 

"By  dad,"  says  Mulligan  to  Ryan,  "we  are 
the  lucky  men  that  got  away  with  our  summer 
discourses  below  at  the  park,  without  some  of 
the  chaps  being  interned." 

"Well,"  says  Dougherty,  "if  it  was  not  for 
me,  you  would  not  have  that  story  to  tell  now. 
I  see  it  comin'— many's  the  time,  in  the  argu- 
ments, especially  when  the  strange  debaters  put 
in  appearance.  I  could  see  them  egging  on  for 
an  argument  that  no  good  would  come  out  of. 
But  I  soon  shut  them  up;  no  religious  or  war 
talk  here,  says  I ;  and  that  in  a  way  which  they 
knew  was  in  earnest.  That's  what  saved  them 
many's  the  time." 

"Anyhow,  did  you  ever  notice,"  says  ould 
Anthony  Devlin,  "the  amount  of  good  and  bad 
that  can  be  said  about  the  women  without  bring- 
in'  up  a  cross  word.  You  can  go  in  a  crowd  of 
min  and  praise  the  ould  women  up  to  the  ninety- 
nines,  and  then  end  in  a  'but — ';  then  go  as  far 
as  you  like  the  other  way;  and  in  both  ways 


198  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

every  man  present  seems  to  enjoy  and  assent 
by  the  nod  of  the  head  to  every  word  that  is 
said. 

"Divil  any  other  subject  do  I  know  of  that 
will  stand  for  that  kind  of  argument.  If  you 
would  try  it  out  on  religion,  or  war,  you  would 
see  the  coats  comin'  off  before  the  subject 
would  be  rightly  started.  Will  some  of  ye  tell 
me  the  reason  of  this  ? ' ' 

''Well,  sor,"  says  Barney  O'Flynn,  "there's 
nothing  strange  in  that,  for  a  divil  another  sub- 
ject on  earth  but  the  women  can  so  much  good 
and  bad  be  said  of  them— and  still  be  tellin'  the 
thruth  all  the  time— so  there's  your  answer." 

"Anny  way,"  says  Pat  Price,  "Ryan,  with 
his  statistics,  his  Daily  News  Almanac,  Shake- 
speare's works  and  his  Bible,  could  furnish  ar- 
gument enough  to  keep  the  whole  townland  ar- 
guin'  until  Doomsday. 

"Ryan,"  says  Price,  "is  like  all  the  other 
remedy  substituters— they  name  all  the  ills 
mankind  is  subjected  to.  It  sounds  well  while 
you're  listenin'  to  it;  but  whin  it's  over  you  will 
find  divil  a  thing  you  were  told  of  but  what  you 
knew  all  about;  and  then  they  always  finish  be- 
fore telling  of  the  cure,  or  when,  where,  and 
how  it's  going  to  take  place — and  there  it  is  for 
you ! ' ' 

"At  any  rate,"  says  ould  Dougherty,  "wit' 
politics  you  must  first  have  the  money  or  you 
are  making  no  display.  And,  as  Con  O'Brien 
says,  'first  seek  ye  the  money,  then  the  commit- 


THEY  ALL  HAVE  THEIR  SAY  199 

teeman  and  all  things  else  in  politics  will  fol- 
low.' But  you  might  have  all  the  good  inten- 
tions in  the  world,  and  if  ye  didn't  have  the 
committeemen,  y're  talkin'  to  strangers,  for 
this  is  the  thrick  in  the  trade.  The  county  com- 
mitteeman,  the  state  committeeman,  and  the 
national  committeeman — they  select  the  po- 
litical feed  that's  presented  to  y.e  at  the  pri- 
maries an'  elections,  when  they  have  everything 
well  prepared.  Then  ye  are  invited  to  partici- 
pate. If  ye  don't  like  the  feed  in  one  party,  ye 
can  go  to  the  other;  but  ye '11  find  whichever 
feed  you  sit  down  to,  the  selection  of  the  feed 
was  made  by  the  committeeman  long  before  ye 
were  invited  to  participate.  And  anny  man 
now  with  half  an  eye  in  his  head  can  see  that 
for  many  years  to  come,  aither  the  Kepublican 
party  or  the  Democratic  party  will  continue  to 
make  the  laws.  And,  as  Mrs.  Jim  Kennedy,  the 
suffragette,  says:  'We  know  what  we  want — 
not  what  ye  tell  us  we  want.'  And  annyhow, 
our  government  is  but  a  reflection  of  the  people, 
and  in  many  parts  of  the  country  the  reflections 
are  very  funny — an'  there  ye  have  it!" 

"Well,"  says  Ryan,  "that's  all  right,  but  our 
plan  of  government  is  big  enough  and  broad 
enough  to  regulate  and  control  every  condition 
that  will  be  for  the  good  of  any  honest  man. 
An',  begorra,  statistics  show  that  it  cost  an 
army  of  lives  to  get  what  we  have  got.  And 
every  man,  or  set  of  men,  that  have  the  nerve 
to  organize  anny  ism  of  any  kind  that  would 


200  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

advocate  the  substitution  of  army  plan  of  gov- 
ernment, or  anny  flag  but  our  flag,  should  be  in- 
terned for  instructions;  and  laws  should  be 
made  to  make  it  a  crime  to  do  so.  That  kind  of 
goin's  on  is  not  freedom,  and  it  should  be  put 
a  stop  to.  For  anny  condition  permitted  to 
grow  unrestricted — once  it  has  grown  up — it's 
hard  work  to  destroy  it,  whether  it's  for  good  or 
evil. 

"You  don't  have  to  change  your  religion,  or 
your  nationality  to  become  a  citizen  and  partici- 
pator in  our  plan  of  government.  Some  are 
born  into  it,  and  others  voluntary,  with  their 
hands  raised  up  to  their  God,  promise  to  for- 
sake all  other  kinds  of  political  government, 
and  support  and  defend  our  plan ;  and  many  of 
them  no  sooner  have  had  their  papers  givin' 
them  the  right  to  participate  in  our  govern- 
ment, than  they  start  organizing  '  isms '  that  aim 
at  the  destruction  of  the  plan  of  government 
that  they  had  sworn  to  defend. 

"Now's  the  time  to  put  a  stop  to  all  this.  Let 
Congress  get  busy.  This  is  our  plan  of  govern- 
ment, the  stars  and  stripes  represent  it. 

' '  And,  as  Anthony  Devlin  says,  in  some  parts 
of  Ireland  when  a  man  dies  they  have  singin' 
and  all  kinds  of  merriment  goin'  on;  and,  in 
some  other  parts  of  Ireland,  when  a  man  dies 
they  have  great  lamentations  and  crying  goin' 
on.  Well,  sir,  a  towney  of  Devlin's  got  into  a 
wake-house  out  at  the  town  of  Lemont,  Illinois. 
He  set  up  his  singin'  and  merry-makin'  the 


THEY  ALL  HAVE  THEIR  SAY  201 

same  as  they  did  in  his  part  of  Ireland  when 
wakin'  the  corpse  of  a  friend. 

''The  result  was,  in  come  big  Dan  Kelly,  and, 
when  he  heard  Devlin's  friend  singin'  and  mak- 
in'  merry  he  gave  him  a  fierce  look— he  knew 
he  was  in  wrong.  The  wake-house  was  one  of 
thim  little  frame  buildin's  built  by  the  owner 
of  a  stone  quarry  at  Lemont,  111.  Well,  sir,  big 
Dan  took  hold  of  Devlin's  friend  by  the  coat 
collar  and  the  seat  of  the  trousers  and  threw 
him  out  through  the  window.  'There,'  said  he, 
'wait  until  some  one  of  your  own  kind  dies  be- 
fore startin'  up  thim  kind  of  didos.'  And  that's 
what  this  government  ought  to  do  immediately 
with  all  kinds  of  political  'isms'  whose  aims  are 
to  supplant  our  plan  of  government  and  its 
flag.  An' there  ye  have  it!" 


A   CHRISTMAS   WAKE   STORY   FROM   THE 
BRIGHTON. 

"Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  Pat  Price, 
"your  friend,  Willum  McCarthy,  the  former 
mimbir  of  the  Legislature  from  the  West  Side, 
was  payin'  a  visit  out  to  Brighton  to  an  ould  ac- 
quaintance of  his  and  mine. 

"I  nivir  knew  it  before,  but  that  McCarthy  is 
a  regular  play  actor,  and  with  his  goings  on  he 
near  broke  up  a  wake  out  here  at  Brighton  last 
week.  I  was  tellin'  him  of  the  death  of  an  ould 
acquaintance  of  his  from  the  West  Side.  Says 
I  to  him,  '  take  a  walk  with  me  over  to  the  wake 
house;  you  know  the  folks  well  and  they'll  be 
glad  to  see  you. '  Well,  sir,  we  wint  over  to  the 
wake  house  and  after  offering  our  condolence 
to  the  family  and  sayin'  a  patterin'  aavee  for 
the  soul  of  the  deceased  we  went  into  an  adjoin- 
ing room. 

There  was  a  large  gatherin'  of  people  there 
and  over  to  wan  side,  where  we  took  seats,  was 
five  or  six  Fardowns — section  men — from  the 
Chicago  &  Alton  Railroad,  seated  there.  One 


204  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

of  thim  was  relatin'  one  of  thim  ghost  stories 
that  are  so  familiar  to  their  part  of  Ireland. 
Well,  sir,  the  man  that  was  tellin'  the  story  was 
so  wrought  up  with  entoosyism  and  earnestness 
of  the  tale,  that  he  had  the  others  in  a  spell 
listenin'  to  him  relatin'  the  tale.  It  was  con- 
sarnin'  some  murdhering  evint  that  occurred 
in  some  place  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  with 
which  they  all  seemed  acquainted.  Anyhow, 
from  what  I  heard  of  it,  the  murdhering  deed 
was  done  with  a  large  pavin'  bowlder  and  a 
sivin-pound  sledge  hammer. 

"It  took  place  on  the  road  side,  betchune  two 
town  lands,  and  it  was  a  very  lonely  spot.  On 
wan  side  of  the  road  was  a  lough  or  slough  ov 
pond,  as  you'd  call  it,  and  on  the  other  side  of 
the  road  was  a  woodland,  makin'  it  a  very  dark 
and  lonely  spot. 

"Well,  sir,  when  the  corpse  of  the  murdhered 
man  was  found  by  a  farmer's  hired  man  on  the 
followin'  mornin',  a  great  hue  and  cry  wint  up 
among  the  people.  They  gathered  there  from 
all  parts.  Anyhow,  the  first  thought  that  came 
into  their  minds  was  to  try  and  learn  the  cause, 
and  as  to  with  what  the  deed  was  done.  Every 
spot  and  place  was  rummaged  to  find  some  evi- 
dince. 

There  was  the  dead  man  lyin'  with  his  head 
batthered  in  and  a  large  scar  on  the  side  of  his 
face.  After  ramsackin'  iviry  thing  and  place 
for  several  hours,  they  were  about  to  give  up, 
whin  along  comes  his  riverince,  the  parish 


MCCARTHY  IN  DOUBT  205 

priest ;  they  tould  him  av  all  the  work  they  had 
done  in  tryin'  to  find  what  caused  the  man's 
death  and  how  they  were  about  to  give  it  up  and 
go  home.  ' First  and  foremost',  says  his  river- 
ince,  'let  ye  kneel  down  and  say  a  prayer  for 
the  repose  of  the  poor  man's  soul.'  Well,  sir, 
after  the  third  patterin'  aavee  a  little  town  cob- 
bler by  the  name  of  Owen  Bree,  that  was  on  his 
knees  on  the  side  of  the  road  furninst  the  lough, 
or  pond,  jumped  to  his  feet  and  let  a  cry  out  of 
him:  ' What's  that,  man!'  says  he,  'what's 
that1?'  pointin'  out  in  the  lough,  or  pond.  There 
it  was  for  you  to  see  as  plain  as  the  nose  on 
your  face,  the  large  paving  bowlder  and  the 
sledge  hammer,  floatin'  around  and  around  on 
the  top  of  the  wather.  Well,  they  all  see  it  and 
then  they  all  said:  'Amen'  and  stood  up,  with 
their  eyes  fixed  on  the  sight!  There  was  the 
large  bowlder  and  the  sivin-pound  iron  sledge 
hammer  floatin'  around  and  around  on  the  top 
of  the  wather! 

"When  it  came  over  furninst  thim,  the  good 
priest  stepped  forward  and  then  callin'  to  the 
little  cobbler,  said  his  riverince:  'When  it 
comes  furninst  you,  do  you  bring  them  to 
shore.'  Well,  sir,  lo  and  behold  you,  he  did. 
There  was  the  blood  on  the  rock  and  also  on  the 
hammer!  'There  now',  says  the  good  priest, 
'there's  your  answer*. 

"Now,  thin,  for  the  ones  that  committed  the 
dastardly  deed.  Well(  McKenna,  here's  where 
your  friend  McCarthy  near  broke  up  the  wake. 


206  MCKENNA'S  STOKIES 

As  these  min  that  were  listenin'  to  the  story 
were  in  the  back  room  and  did  not  see  McCar- 
thy come  into  the  presence  of  the  corpse,  they 
had  no  knowledge  as  to  whether  McCarthy  was 
left  handed  or  not.  Thin,  whin  in  the  most  ex- 
citin'  and  interestin'  point  of  the  tale,  McCar- 
thy, interrupts  the  story  and  here's  where  he 
becomes  the  play  actor.  McCarthy  puts  his 
hand  into  his  vest  pocket,  takes  from  it  a  case, 
and  from  the  case  he  takes  the  single  eyeglass, 
puts  it  over  the  one  eye,  and  said  he,  interrupt- 
in'  the  story  teller  and  looking  up  straight  into 
his  face— said  McCarthy:  "I  beg  your  pardon, 
old  top,  did  I  understand  you  to  say  that  this 
was  a  large  bowlder  stone!'  'That's  what  you 
did,'  said  the  story  teller.  'By  jove,  I  beg  your 
pardon  again,  old  chap,  did  I  understand  you 
to  say  that  this  large  stone  was  floatin'  around 
and  around  on  the  top  of  the  pool1?'  'That's 
what  I'm  tellin'  you  again,'  was  the  answer  of 
the  story  teller.  McCarthy  now  begins  puttin' 
it  on  a  little  stronger,  and  again  said:  'By 
jove,  old  top,  did  I  understand  you  to  say  that 
this  was  a  seven-pound  hammer  and  that  it  kept 
floating  around  and  around  on  the  top  of  the 
water?'  'That's  what  I'm  tellin'  you,  sir,'  was 
the  answer.  Then  said  McCarthy:  'I  say,  old 
top,  impossible!  impossible!  You  know  that 
that  is  a  scientific  impossibility,  old  chap. '  Just 
then  McCarthy  see  the  son  of  the  deceased  ap- 
proaching and  McCarthy  stepped  forward  to 
condole  with  him  and  left  the  story  teller.  The 


MCCARTHY  IN  DOUBT  207 

Fardown  who  was  tellin'  the  story  was  dum- 
founded.  Said  he,  very  sarcastically:  'Who 
the  h—  is  that  fellow,  anyhow?  Lord,  be  good 
to  Larry  anyway,  but  I  never  knew  he  had  any 
acquaintance  like  that.'  'No,'  said  one  of  the 
others,  'he  is  an  acquaintance  of  the  son.' 
'There  it  is  for  you,'  said  the  story  teller,  'the 
risin'  gineration,  the  divil  the  thing  do  they 
believe  or  have  they  on  their  mind  but  the  wom- 
en and  the  baseball.'  'True  for  you,'  said  an- 
other, 'for  I  heard  Larry's  son  tell  that  chap 
as  how  some  Eddie  Collins,  a  ball  player,  hit  the 
ball  so  hard  that  it  went  so  fast  that  it  set  the 
grass  on  fire.  He  believed  that,  for  he  replied : 
"Very  clever,  very  clever;  a  good  hit".  And 
there  you  have  it,  but  divil  a  bit  of  religion  is 
in  them.  Let's  all  go  out  and  take  a  punch  at 
him  for  spoiling  the  story,'  but  McCarthy  was 
gone. ' ' 


THEY    HAVE   GOT   RYAN    GUESSING. 

"Well,  well,  McKenna,"  says  Nicholas  Ryan, 
'  now  that  young  Garfield  has  arranged  it  so  for 
the  next  six  Mondays,  that  I  will  have  nothing 
to  do  but  talk,  I'm  going  to  tell  you  something. 

"I  have  been  livin'  in  and  around  Chicago  for 
more  than  the  past  fifty  years,  and  with  all  the 
goings  on  they  do  be  liavin'  it's  got  me  thinkin', 
but,  I  'm  like  Barney  0  'Flynn  was,  when  he  was 
attending  tjie  political  meeting  where  the  can- 
didate for  Alderman  was  relating  all  the  things 
he  would  do,  if  the  people  in  their  wisdom 
should  select  him  to  represent  them  in  the  City 
Council. 

"  'Well,  well',  says  Barney,  talking  to  him- 
self while  smokin'  the  pipe,  and  noddin'  the 
head  up  and  down,  'well,  well,'  says  he  again. 
'I've  heard  the  likes  of  that  manys  and  manys 
the  time  before,'  and  so  'tis  with  all  the  goings 
on  they  do  be  havin'  and  the  sayings  they  do  be 
havin'  about  one  another"  it  has  me  guessin'  as 
to  what  is  true  and  what  is  not  true,  and  it's  got 
to  this  now,  that  you  can  hardly  believe  any- 
thing you  hear  as  a  certainty,  until  you  hear 
from  the  other  fellow. 

•'Well,  sir,  whin  I  was  a  kid  about  the  city, 
manys  the  year  ago,  you  could  take  a  walk  about 
on  a  Sunday,  and  visit  the  numerous  small 
churches  we  then  had  in  those  days,  and  where 
tlio  competition  was  great  to  get  members. 
Well,  sir,  to  listen  to  the  preachers  of  the  dif- 


210  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

ferent  denominations  tell  what  they  thought  of 
persons  that  belonged  to  denominations  differ- 
ent from  theirs  and  to  where  they  would  go  to 
when  the  undertakers  called  for  them,  was 
amusin'.  This  was  before  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
took  hell  out  of  religion.  At  any  rate  there  was 
a  warm  reception  predicted.  Well,  sir  if  what 
they  all  said  of  one  another  was  true,  to  an  out- 
sider, after  listenin'  to  all  sides,  you  would 
come  to  the  conclusion  and  say  to  yourself,  'now 
there 's  a  bunch ;  if  what  they  say  of  one  another 
is  all  true,  the  divil  is  going  to  be  a  busy  man'. 
But  this  was  in  the  ould  days  before  immigra- 
tion and  population  was  as  extensive  as  it  is  to- 
day. There's  women  enough  now-a-days  to  fill 
all  the  seats  in  the  churches,  and  most  men  of 
today  have  got  whatever  religious  views  they 
have  in  their  wives'  names.  And  there  it's  for 
you. 

"But  this  is  not  what  I  started  out  to  talk  to 
you  about,  but  it  is  along  the  same  lines.  I  have 
been  reading  the  newspapers  and  listenin'  to 
political  orators  and  reformers,  progressive  and 
digressive,  if  you  wish,  for  the  rrtanys  and 
manys  the  year  and  what  I  want  to  say  is  this : 
if  one-thousandth  part  of  what  has  been  said 
and  published  and  promised  was  ever  done, 
what  a  trial  balance  it  would  make. 

"If,  all  of  what  they  tell,  was  plundered  from 
the  tax  payers  is  really  true,  what  I'm  thinkin' 
of,  what  a  really  tough  animal  he  is  to  be  able 
to  bear  up  with  it  all,  and  if  all  the  promises  of 


GOT  RYAN  GUESSING  211 

reductions  and  benefits  that  the  same  tax  pay- 
ers have  been  promised  by  opposing  parties 
and  reforming  associations  for  their  support  in 
adoptin'  their  policies,  was  delivered  to  them  as 
promised,  they  would  now  be  receiving  prem- 
iums on  their  holdings,  instead  of  paying  a  tax. 
'But  there  you  are  again',  as  O'Flynn  says, 
'we've  heard  the  likes  of  that  manys  and  manys 
the  time  before.' 

"But  with  all  this,  we  are  still  here  and 
seemingly  thriving.  After  making  our  selec- 
tions of  men  to  represent  us,  such  as  the  oppos- 
ing parties  tell  us  they  are,  nevertheless,  here 
is  where  I  am  always  satisfied  and  never  disap- 
pointed in  the  men  I  vote  for.  You  know,  while 
I  am  only  a  tax  payer,  I  am  a  consistent  Repub- 
lican, but  I  still  make  it  a  point  to  get  my  in- 
formation concerning  the  reputation  and  char- 
acter of  the  candidates  of  my  party  from  the 
opposing  sides,  never  from  my  own  side,  and 
here  is  where  I  get  my  contintment ;  for  no  mat- 
ter how  big  a  rogue  my  party  candidate  turns 
out  to  be?  he  is  never  one-tenth  as  bad  as  I  had 
been  informed  he  was,  when  he  was  the  candi- 
date ;  so  you  see  I  am  never  disappointed.  When 
I  want  information  concerning  the  candidate  of 
the  opposing  parties  I  have  my  friend  O'Flynn 
attend  the  meeting  of  my  own  party,  and  then 
get  O'Flynn  to  relate  to  me  what  was  said  of 
the  men  that  are  candidates  on  the  opposing 
side.  Then  I  laugh  and  laugh  and  when  elec-* 
tion  day  comes  I  put  my  cross  in  the  circle  at 


212  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

the  head  of  my  own  ticket  and  say  to  myself, 
as  between  two  evils,  the  divil  I  know  is  better 
than  the  divil  I  don't  know.  And  there  it's  for 
you. 

"It  seems  as  though  at  election  times  it  is 
permissible  to  tell  the  truth  about  one  another 
and  that,  too,  without  any  one  takin'  it  as  a 
very  grave  offense.  For,  by  golly,  McKenna,  it 
would  be  a  grave  yard  offinse  to  mention  some 
of  the  things  they  say  about  each  other  except 
at  election  time,  but  as  I  am  tellin'  you,  a  good 
safe  bet  is  to  always  get  the  reputation  and 
character  of  your  party  candidate  from  the  op- 
posing side.  He  may  turn  out  to  be  a  wrong 
one,  but  from  what  you  have  heard  of  him  be- 
forehand, your  only  surprise  will  be  that  he 
wasn't  worse. 

"And  there  vou  have  it." 


OLD  ANTHONY  DEVLIN  AIRS  HIS  VIEWS. 

"Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  old  Devlin,  "we 
now  have  the  wheatless  day,  the  meatless  day, 
and  the  porkless  day;  then  the  loafin'  Mondays. 
Well,  sir,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  win  this  war 
aisy  with  all  these  auxiliaries. 

"But  I  was  thinkin'  if  they  only  put  hell  back 
into  religion  until  the  war  is  over,  an'  let  the 
preachers  set  in  on  some  of  their  old-fashioned 
sermons  on  'Hell,'  they  could  make  it  so  warm 
for  their  hearers  of  a  Sunday  that  they  might 
dispense  with  the  use  of  coal  altogether  in  the 
.churches;  for  in  some  of  them  good  old-fash- 
ioned talks  on  the  'Intensity  of  the  Heat  of 
Hell's  Fire,'  they  could  start  the  perspiration 
flowing  down  the  brow  of  the  chilliest  old  lady 
in  the  parish  at  a  temperature  of  seven  de- 
grees below  zero. 

"This  would  be  another  great  adjunct  in 
helping  win  the  war. 

"Mr.  Baker,  the  man  that  is  doin'  the  trick, 
would  approve  of  this,  for  he  knows  'tis  like  the 
sayin'  in  the  Good  Book  on  the  winning  of  sal- 
vation, 'you  may  have,'  says  the  Good  Book, 
'faith  that  would  move  mountains,  but  if  you 
have  not  charity  it  will  avail  you  nothing.' 
And  so  it  is,  you  might  refrain  from  the  use 
of  pork,  an'  you  might  mix  your  wheat  with 
chaff,  an'  ye  might  heat  your  body  on  the 
thoughts  of  hell  fire;  but  if  you'll  not  hold  your 
tongue,  all  of  this  will  avail  you  naught.  Now, 


214  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

there  it  is  for  you !  The  talkless  day  is  what  we 
want,  to  insure  the  winnin'  of  the  war. 

1  'It  was  too  much  talk  that  brought  the  war 
on,  and  when  they  stopped  shootin'  and  went  to 
talkin',  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  lost  his  good 
job;  and'  it's  too  much  talkin'  now  that  is  keep- 
in'  them  from  getting  a  substitute  for  the  Czar. 

"What  we  want  now  is  to  be  in  the  position 
of  the  old  sea  captain  and  the  sailors;  there 
came  up  a  big  storm.  Well,  things  looked  bad. 
Some  old  ladies  that  were  on  the  boat  asked  the 
captain,  *  Would  it  not  be  a  good  thing  to  say 
some  prayers  now!'  'Oh,'  says  the  captain, 
'order  the  men  aloft;  we  have  done  our  pray- 
ing before  this  storm  took  place.  What  we 
want  now  is  to  take  care  of  the  rigging.'  And 
so  it  is  with  us.  We  have  had  plenty  of  time 
for  talks,  and  sure  enough  we  did  talk — and 
plenty  of  it. 

"But  the  kind  of  talk  that  some  of  them  are 
giving  nowdays,  you  could  borrow  very  little 
money  on  it  at  Barney  Mulligan's  bank. 

"So,  I  say,  you  might  fast  until  all  the  trusts 
would  go  broke;  but  if  you  don't  hold  your 
tongue,  all  things  else  that  you  do  will  count  for 
naught. 

"The  men  that  are  in  the  places  where  they 
see  and  know,  from  the  best  authority,  and 
guided  by  men  of  experience  as  to  what  is 
needed,  let  them  act  and  be  guided  by  their  say- 
so — else  all  your  other  work  will  be  in  vain;  for 
men  who  will  stop  to  argue  with  their  general 


DEVLIN  AIRS  His  VIEWS  215 

as  to  the  best  way  they  think  things  ought  to 
be  done,  will  never  win  a  fight. 

"Now,  the  men  that  have  got  this  war  in 
hand,  guiding  the  interests  of  America,  we  must 
take  it  for  granted  that  they  knew  what  they 
were  at  when  they  went  to  it.  It's  their  job  now 
to  make  a  success  of  it.  There's  no  brakes  on 
them.  The  money,  the  resources,  the  lives,  and 
the  good-will  of  the  nation  is  at  their  command ; 
their  part  is  but  to  order.  And  our  part  is  to 
act  the  part  of  Alderman  Duffy's  constituents. 
When  he  would  say,  'Am  I  right,  boys?'  they 
would  unanimously  answer,  'You  are  right, 
Duffy.'  And  he  would  reply,  'You  know  right 
well  I  am  right.'  That's  the  only  kind  of  spirit 
and  talk  that  will  win  the  war.  For  it's  not 
your  stomachs  that  you're  going  to  win  this  war 
with,  but  your  brains. 

"We  will  have  lots  of  time  to  discuss  this  war 
when  it's  over;  the  die  is  cast  now.  The  men 
that  have  the  job  now  in  hand  must  finish  it. 
Success  or  failure  will  be  the  answer.  We  have 
done  our  part  through  our  representatives.  We 
have  offered  all  we  have  got— our  property  and 
lives  are  at  their  command.  We  have  done  our 
part;  we  could  have  done  no  more.  It's  gone 
past  the  prayin'  time  now.  And  so  I'm  tellin' 
ye:  one  talkless  day  will  count  as  much  as  ten 
eatless  days  in  winning  this  war — and  there  it  is 
for  you ! 

"We  now  are  in  the  fight;  and  as  Barney 
0  'Flynn  said  when  he  had  a  fight  with  a  Dutch- 


216  MCKENNA'S  STORIES 

man,  the  agreement  was,  when  the  one  that  was 
licked  would  say  aloud  *  Sufficiency',  that  was  to 
end  it.  Well,  sir,  the  Dutchman  had  Barney 
down  and  was  b'ating  him  until  he  tired  himself 
out,  but  O'Flynn  forgot  the  word  'Sufficiency' 
and  finally,  when  O'Flynn  again  came  to  and 
was  pounding  away  at  the  Dutchman,  to  his  sur- 
prise the  Dutchman  cried  aloud,  'Sufficiency.' 
Begorra,  says  O'Flynn,  that's  good!  If  I  could 
have  thought  of  that  word  hours  ago,  you  would 
have  had  me  b'at.  So  that's  all  the  talk  we 
want  now — to  say  nothing,  but  fight  on  until 
someone  says  'Sufficiency'  good  and  loud;  and 
there  you  have  it." 


THE  OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET. 

''Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  Jerry  Duggan, 
"I  enjoyed  your  Christmas  wake  story  concern- 
ing your  friend  'Willum'  McCarthy,  the  former 
member  of  the  legislature  from  the  West  Side, 
and  the  far-down  section  men  from  the  Chicago 
&  Alton  Railroad.  Anyhow,  that  McCarthy, 
when  he  puts  the  one  eyeglass  on,  he  can  take 
oft'  an  Englishman  better  than  anyone  I  ever 
see.  But  if  them  far-downs  knew  that  his  name 
was  McCarthy  when  he  questioned  the  possi- 
bility of  that  sivin-pound  iron  hammer  and  the 
large  boulder  stone  that  they  said  was  seen 
floating  around  and  around  on  the  top  of  the 
waters,  as  they  were  describing  it  in  the  fairy 
story  they  were  telling  of  ancient  Irish  days, 
McCarthy's  life  would  have  been  in  danger, 
wake  or  no  wake. 

"  'Well  sir,  McKenna,'  I  could  tell  you  av  a 
story  av  that  same  'Willum'  McCarthy  with  his 
tricks;  and  every  word  I'm  telling  you  is  true. 
When  I  first  come  to  this  country  as  a  green- 
horn, as  them  laddy-bucks  nicked  me,  I  was 
stopping  with  a  first  cousin  of  mine,  one  Jim 
Carey,  that  was  keeping  a  tavern  in  Halsted 
street  south  av  Harrison  street.  Jim  was  some- 
what av  a  sport,  and  his  place  was  the  resort  of 
the  young  men  and  of  many  av  the  old  men  in 
those  days. 

"There  was  very  few  foreigners  living  in  that 
neighborhood  in  those  days,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  Bohemians  and  Germans ;  the  popula- 


218  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

tion  was  made  up  mostly  of  all  Irish  people. 
Anyhow,  the  young  men  that  congregated  at 
Jim's  place  were  always  up  to  all  kinds  of 
thricks,  and  out  for  all  kinds  av  fun. 

1  i  Whatever  they  did  in  the  daytime  for  a  live- 
lihood I  don't  know,  but  when  you'd  see  them 
av  an  evening,  the  way  they  were  dressed  up 
and  the  careless  way  in  which  they  separated 
themselves  from  their  money,  they  reminded  me 
av  estated  meus'  sons  in  the  ould  country. 

"Well  sir,  Carey  had  two  special  ould  f rinds, 
one  av  them  was  Rolff,  the  butcher.  He  kept  a 
shop  in  Halsted  street,  close  to  Jim  Carey.  The 
other  was  Dan  Kellilier,  the  groceryman,  also  a 
neighbor.  Anyhow,  the  story  I'm  going  to  tell 
you  is  consarnin'  McCarthy,  Jim  Carey,  Rolff 
the  butcher,  Dan  Kellilier  and  some  others.  Mc- 
Carthy always  saluted  Carey  as  the  knight  av 
the  spoon  and  strainer.  Well,  Jim  was  as  full 
av  thricks  as  any  av  them. 

"Well,  sir,  this  part  av  the  story  that  I'm  go- 
in'  to  tell  you  about  happened  one  night,  far 
from  the  shank  av  the  evening,  or  about  closing 
time,  and  it  was  in  the  fall  av  the  year. 

"There  was  a  big  County  Mayo  policeman 
who  traveled  beat  at  that  point:  he  just  slipped 
in  the  back  way  and  into  the  bar-room ;  no  one 
was  present  but  Jim  Carey,  myself,  and  Dan 
Kellilier.  Well  sir,  the  officer  whispered  to  Jim 
to  be  careful ;  close  up  on  time,  said  he.  Av 
course  this  meant  a  sup  for  the  officer;  then  it 
would  be  out  the  back  way  again  with  him.  But 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET  219 

no,  not  so  this  time— for  just  as  he  had  finished 
his  sup,  open  came  the  front  door  and  in  came 
McCarthy. 

' '  Now,  McCarthy,  in  a  very  dignified  manner, 
exclaimed,  'Good-evening,  everybody!'  Mr. 
Carey,  said  McCarthy,  just  serve  us  a  little 
moisture,  and  give  the  officer  here  a  little  of  the 
wild  cow's  milk,  for  the  night  is  cold  and  long; 
and,  Mr.  Carey,  serve  this  other  gentleman  with 
his  choice  of  your  many  and  necessary  bever- 
ages, and  do  not  forget  yourself ! 

11  'Now,  then,'  said  McCarthy,  'now  that  we 
are  all  set,  we  will  proceed  with  the  case  before 
the  bar,  and  when  disposed  of,  bring  in  the  next 
case.' 

"Here,  McCarthy,  was  interrupted  by  Jim 
Carey.  Carey  now,  is  in  for  thricks.  I  want  to 
introduce  to  you  gentlemen,  Dr.  McCarthy,  who 
is  a  young  graduate  from  Rush  Medical  College 
and  who  resides  in  our  neighborhood.  McCar- 
thy was  on  in  a  minute.  McCarthy  now  shakes 
hands  with  Dan  Kelliher,  the  groceryman,  and 
next  with  the  big  County  Mayo  policeman— and 
there  is  where  McCarthy  begins  his  thricks.  As 
he  held  the  policeman's  elapsed  hand,  he  looked 
up  into  the  big  policeman's  face,  and  said  he, 
'Officer,  do  you  know  that  you  have  a  torpid 
liver?  I  presume  you  do,  said  McCarthy.'  'T 
do  not — and  what  is  that,  said  the  officer!'  'That 
is— now,  said  Dr.  McCarthy,  a  liver  that  is  coat- 
ed with  a  foreign  substance  which  does  not  be- 
long there.' 

"By  this  time,  they  all  had  seven  or  eight 


220  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

sups  taken,  and  the  officer  took  the  wild  cow's 
milk  each  time.  And  going  on  with  the  subject, 
McCarthy  said:  'When  in  a  healthy  condition, 
'twill  not  appear  there;  and  a  torpid  liver  is 
caused  by  the  excessive  use  of  alcohol  and  may 
become  corrosive  or  enlarged,  which  may  cause 
the  demise  of  the  victim.  By  the  way, '  said  Mc- 
Carthy to  Jim  Carey,  'be  a  good  Samaritan  and 
hereafter  don't  serve  the  officer  with  that  strong- 
liquor — just  let  him  have  the  milder  kind,  such 
as  I  take !'  (It  was  all  the  same,  but  in  a  differ- 
ent bottle.) 

"By  this  time  the  wild  cow's  milk  and  the 
free  examination  is  making  the  officer  and  Mc- 
Carthy very  chummy.  'Mr.  Carey,'  said  Mc- 
Carthy, 'the  officer's  case  is  a  most  interesting 
one  and  needs  immediate  attention!' 

"The  officer  was  big  enough  to  pull  a  ton  of 
hay — not  a  thing  ailed  him,  except  too  much  of 
the  wild  cow's  milk  and  all  the  free  information 
that  he  thought  he  was  getting  from  the  doctor. 

"After  another  drink  from  the  doctor's  bot- 
tle, he  wanted  more  information  concerning  the 
case.  'Well,'  said  McCarthy,  'if  there  is  not 
any  objection  to  any  of  the  few  here  present, 
friend  Carey  can  lock  the  doors,  and,  by  the 
way,  you  just  strip  to  the  waist;  I  will  explain 
to  you  as  I  go  along  in  a  careful  examination.' 

"Well,  he  did;  and  the  examination  went  on, 
and  during  the  examination,  McCarthy  had  the 
officer  drink  three  glasses  of  cold  ice  water  while 
he  held  his  ear  pressed  to  the  big  officer's  breast. 
Everything  was  explained  as  the  examination 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STBEET  221 

went  on,  and  at  the  finish  McCarthy  very  mod- 
estly explained  to  the  officer  that  he  also  dis- 
covered that  the  officer  was  afflicted  with  a  float- 
ing kidney. 

1  'Now,  with  all  this  information — the  cold  ice 
water,  the  long  intermission  between  drinks,  and 
all  this  serious  information — as  big  and  as 
strong  as  the  officer  was,  he  loked  faint  and  ex- 
cited. 

"As  he  was  getting  into  his  clothes  he  said, 
where  is  your  office,  doctor!  Here  Carey  replied 
that  the  doctor  is  about  to  open  an  office  in  the 
Reaper  block,  Clark  and  Washington  streets, 
and  you  ought  to  see  him  at  your  earliest  con- 
venience. 'Jim,'  says  the  officer,  'I  will  if  the 
Lord  spares  me  till  next  week.'  "Doctor,  have 
you  any  patients  in  the  neighborhood  ?'  said  the 
officer.  Carey  interrupts  by  saying  yes,  he  has 
several,  and  he  is  just  back  now  from  a  case 
where  he  sewed  fourteen  stitches  in  a  man's 
head  over  on  Polk  and  Morgan  street.  At  this 
then,  the  officer's  curiosity  was  aroused. 

"He  now  takes  Carey  aside  and  asked  Carey 
what  happened  to  the  man?  Carey  whispered: 
told  him  that  the  man  was  hit  on  the  head  with  a 
butcher's  cleaver  in  the  hands  of  Rolff,  the 
butcher.  Now,  Rolff,  as  I  told  you  at  the  begin- 
ning, was  one  of  Carey's  best  cronies. 

"Here,  McCarthy  ordered  another  round  of 
moisture,  after  which,  the  officer  whispered  to 
Carey  to  let  him  out  the  back  door.  'Don't  for- 
get the  closing  time,'  said  the  officer — it  was 


222  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

then  one  hour  past  the  time — and,  'Good-night, 
doctor'  said  he,  'I  will  see  you  next  week  if  the 
Lord  spares  me.' 

"Then,  what  do  you  suppose  the  policeman 
did?  Well,  he  pulled  the  box  and  reported  to 
the  station  that  a  man  was  hit  on  the  head  with 
an  ax,  by  Rolff,  the  butcher,  and  may  die  before 
morning— and  without  further  delay  there  be- 
gun an  investigation.  Most  all  of  the  available 
coppers  donned  citizens  clothes  and  went  in 
search  of  Rolff,  the  butcher.  After  an  hour's 
search  they  found  him  at  the  Valwrwortz  mas- 
querade at  Twelfth  Street  Turner  Hall,  and 
they  took  him  away  from  his  friends  in  his  mas- 
querade outfit  and  locked  him  up.  in  the  Twelfth 
Street  Station. 

"His  friends  got  busy  and  telephoned  the 
captain,  who  arose  from  his  bed  and  then  and 
there  began  an  investigation.  They,  of  course, 
could  find  no  one  that  was  injured  at  Polk  and 
Morgan  streets,  and  they  found  that  Rolff  was 
at  the  Turner  Hall  since  8  o'clock  P.  M.,  and 
previous  to  this  time  was  serving  chops  and 
weiners  at  his  butcher  shop. 

"When  McCarthy  heard  of  the  developments 
he  enjoyed  it  hugely.  Carey  felt  different,  as  he 
did  not  think  that  the  Mayo  policeman  would  re- 
port the  matter  as  stated,  and  get  his  friend  and 
neighbor,  Rolff,  into  trouble. 

"But  that  was  not  all ;  the  captain  next  morn- 
ing called  to  see  Carey  and  asked  him  about 
where  he  got  his  information  about  Rolff  hit- 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET  223 

ting  a  man  with  an  ax,  and  he  also  wanted  to 
know  where  he  could  find  the  doctor  that  was 
supposed  to  have  sewed  up  the  wound.  Well, 
any  way  there  was  not  much  hilarity  around 
Carey's  for  several  days  and  nights — Rolff  and 
Carey  are  now  on  the  outs,  and  Dr.  McCarthy 
can't  be  found." 


CONTINUATION  OF  OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET. 

''  'Well,  McKenna,'  said  Jerry  Duggan,  'I 
will  now  finish  my  story  consarnin'  your  friend 
Willum  McCarthy  and  Jim  Carey  and  the  gang 
that  held  fort  at  Jim  Carey 's  in  Halsted  street ; 
and  before  I'm  forgettin'  myself  I  must  tell  you 
of  Dan  Kelliher,  the  groceryman.  As  I  told  you 
in  my  last  story,  Dan  was  present  the  night  Mc- 
Carthy examined  the  big  Mayo  policeman ;  and 
you  see,  McCarthy  made  such  an  impression  on 
Dan  by  the  Clever  manner  in  which  he  examined 
the  big  policeman  that  he  called  to  see  Carey  a 
few  nights  afterward,  and  in  the  conversation 
he  had  with  Carey  he  was  saying  what  a  fine 
young  doctor  that  McCarthy  was,  and,  said  he, 
'If  ever  I  am  sick  I  will  have  McCarthy  as  my 
doctor,  you  can  bet  your  life  on  that.'  And 
while  Kelliher  was  talking  to  Carey,  in  walked 
McCarthy.  Kelliher  greeted  Mm  by  sayin,' 
Talk  of  the  devil  and  he  will  always  appear.' 
McCarthy  laughed  and  said,  'Mr.  Kelliher,  your 
name  has  been  mentioned  as  a  member  of  the 
C.  G.  R.  A.,  and  we  will  be  glad  to  have  you  as 
one  of  its  members  and,  I  might  say,  a  leading 


224  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

member.'  'And  what  is  the  C.  G.  E.  A.?'  said 
Kelliher.  'Why,  said  McCarthy,  it  is  an  organi- 
zation for  the  improvement  of  mankind  general- 
ly.' 'All  right,'  says  Kelliher,  I  am  always  in 
for  anything  like  that.  What  would  be  the  cost 
per  year  for  joining  it?  Oh,  said  McCarthy, 
just  a  trifle— a  ten-dollar  bill  will  cover  the  cost 
for  a  year.  Well,  I  will  join  it ;  and  I  might  as 
well  hand  you  the  ten  dollars  as  we  are  here — 
and  he  handed  over  the  ten-dollar  bill  to  Mc- 
Carthy. 

"Well,  said  McCarthy,  we  meet  Friday  night 
in  the  lodge  hall  in  the  rear.  Well,  to  make  a 
long  story  short,  Friday  night  the  gang  was  all 
there,  with  everything  prepared  to  make  Kelli- 
her's  initiation  a  memorable  one.  Everything 
was  well  prepared;  McCarthy  had  borrowed  a 
large  white  apron  from  Rolff,  the  butcher,  for 
the  occasion.  He  also  purchased  a  large  pig's 
heart  and  some  other  necessary  tools  for  the 
event.  Everything  was  in  readiness,  and  Kelli- 
her was  there  and  so  was  all  the  gang. 

"Before  the  meeting,  McCarthy  treated  all 
the  gang  twice  with  Kelliher 's  initiation  fee 
money.  Then  they  all  marched  into  the  hall  and 
McCarthy  took  the  gavel  and  acted  as  the  chair- 
man. He  had,  posted  on  the  wall  behind  his 
chair,  a  large  drawing  of  the  full  anatomy  of  a 
man — giving  a  Latin  name  after  each  organ. 

"And  here  McCarthy  took  a  billiard  cue  into 
his  hand  and  began  pointing  out  each  organ  and 
its  relation  to  the  others  and  their  natural  con- 
nection. And  as  McCarthy  was  explaining,  says 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STKEET  225 

he :  4If  those  organs  are  kept  in  a  healthy  con- 
dition, a  man  can  live  for  a  hundred  years  or 
more. ' 

' '  Just  then,  three  loud  raps  were  heard  on  the 
side  door.  McCarthy  is  on,  and  gave  the  guards 
the  order  to  admit  those  that  sought  admission. 

"The  door  was  opened  and  two  tall  men  en- 
tered with  a  supposed  body  of  a  dead  man  on 
their  shoulders  and  brought  it  to  a  table  pre- 
pared for  its  reception  up  at  the  side  of  the 
speaker's  table. 

"When  Kelliher  saw  this,  he  slowly  raised  to 
his  feet  and  started  for  the  door,  but  was  inter- 
cepted by  the  guards,  and  he  sat  down. 

"You  see,  the  supposed  dead  man  was  John 
Noonan,  and  he  was  wrapped  in  a  blanket  and 
you  could  not  see  any  part  of  him  but  the  top  of 
his  head  and  his  bare  feet. 

"No  wonder  poor  Kelliher  was  nervous,  he 
thinking  that  the  man  on  the  table  was  dead. 

"McCarthy  here  raps  the  table  and  said, 
'Now,  brothers,  without  further  delay  we  will 
proceed  to  dissect  this  splendid  subject,  which 
has  been  taken  from  one  of  o<ur  neighboring 
cemeteries;  but  before  we  begin,  a  vote  of 
thanks  is  in  order  to  Brothers  Maloney,  Doran, 
Meagher,  and  Powell.  After  the  vote,  McCar- 
thy takes  off  the  coat,  rolls  up  the  sleeves,  and 
approaches  the  supposed  corpse  on  the  table, 
and  raises  the  blanket  so  as  to  give  Noonan  a 
better  chance  to  breathe. 

"But  poor  Kelliher  could  not  stand  it  any 


226  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

longer.  He  jumped  to  his  feet  and  shouted  out, 
'Let  me  out  of  here,  you  grave  robbers,  or  I  will 
have  the  police  on  ye' 

"Kelliher  was  grabbed  from  behind  by  the 
guards  and  forced  into  his  chair. 

' '  Here  one  of  the  boys  asked  the  chairman  i  f 
this  man  was  a  member?  And  when  McCarthy 
said  he  was  not,  McCarthy  was  censored  by  sev- 
eral members  for  his  carelessness.  But  poor 
Kelliher  was  forcibly  brought  to  the  chairman's 
table  and  compelled  to  sign  a  paper  that  he 
would  not  divulge  anything  that  occurred  at  the 
meeting  that  night — and  now,  that  he  was  a 
member,  he  might  resume  his  seat. 

"Then  McCarthy  stated  that  members  who 
did  not  care  to  witness  the  dissecting  of  the 
body  could  retire  to  the  side  room. 

Kelliher  was  the  first  to  retire,  where  he  soon 
finds  a  side  door  to  the  barroom.  Here,  Carey 
tries  to  explain  to  poor  Kelliher  the  workings 
of  the  order,  and  in  the  meantime,  Noonan  arose 
from  the  table,  put  on  his  shoes  and  stockings, 
fixed  up  his  hair,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  seat- 
ed alongside  of  poor  Dan,  who  had  no  idea  that 
his  neighbor  was  formerly  the  dead  one  on  the 
table. 

"Now,  to  complete  the  deed,  McCarthy  was 
informed  that  Kelliher  was  now  in  conversation 
with  Carey  at  the  bar.  McCarthy  takes  the  pig's 
heart  from  the  dinner  pail  that  was  hid  under 
the  table  for  the  event;  he  puts  it  on  a  plate  and 
partly  covers  it  over  with  a  newspaper;  he 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET  227 

walks  out  to  the  bar  with  the  white  apron  on, 
the  sleeves  rolled  up,  carrying  the  plate,  and 
never  pretending  that  he  was  paying  any  heed 
to  Kelliher.  He  said  to  Carey,  'Jim,  will  you 
please  put  this  in  the  ice  box?'  And  here  he 
whispered  to  Jim  so  that  Kelliher  might  hear 
it,  'it's  the  biggest  heart  I  ever  see  in  a  man.' 
Then  he  went  right  back  to  the  hall,  and  Jim  put 
the  heart  in  the  ice  box. 

"Now,  it  was  but  a  short  time  until  the  gang 
adjourned  and  came  out  into  the  barroom, 
where  McCarthy  ordered  several  drinks  with 
Kelliher 's  initiation  fee  money.  Not  one  word 
was  said  of  anything  that  was  done  at  the  meet- 
ing. Sociability  and  song  was  the  further  pro- 
gram of  the  evening,  everyone  pretending  to 
show  great  friendship  to  poor  Dan  Kelliher. 
Dan  had  no  idea  that  it  was  his  money  they 
were  celebrating  on,  but  he  seemed  to  enjoy  the 
fun  as  much  as  any  of  them. 

"Now,  here  comes  the  saddest  blow  to  poor 
Dan.  Several  nights  after  the  meeting  the  boys 
were  seated  around  Carey's  big  stove,  Kelliher, 
of  course,  among  their  number. 

' '  Suddenly  the  door  was  opened  by  a  big  fel- 
low who  entered,  and  approaching  Carey,  asked 
him  where  he  could  find  Dan  Kelliher,  the  gro- 
ceryman  ?  He  said  he  was  over  to  his  store  but 
it  was  closed.  'I  have  important  business  with 
him  and  would  like  very  much  to  see  him. 

"Dan  overheard  the  conevrsation,  and  step- 
ping forward  said,  'I'm  Dan  Kelliher,  what's 


228  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

your  business?'  'Well,  in  the  first  place,  I'm 
an  officer  of  the  law  and  I  want  to  put  to  you  a 
few  questions?' 

"Then  he  pulled  out  a  paper  from  his  pocket. 
'  The  first  is,  is  that  your  signature  ? '  Dan  looked 
at  the  paper  which  was  shown  him  and  acknowl- 
edged the  signature. 

"The  paper  was  the  same  one  that  Dan  signed 
at  the  meeting  which  made  him  a  member  of 
'The  Chicago  Grave  Robbers'  Association,'  and 
also  the  oath  that  he  made  not  to  divulge  any- 
thing that  occurred  at  the  meeting  where  the 
body  was  brought  in. 

"The  acting  officer  was  'Billy'  Broderick,  who 
at  that  time  was  a  detective  for  the  Chicago  & 
Milwaukee  Railroad.  He  explained  that  the 
paper  was  found  on  the  street  and  was  turned 
in  at  the  station.  I  started  to  investigate  and  I 
learned  that  old  Pat  Hennessey's  grave  was 
robbed  and  his  body  was  dissected  in  this  neigh- 
borhood; and  with  this  paper  I  expect  to  locate 
the  ringleaders. 

"  'What  do  you  say,'  says  Kelliher,  'was  ould 
Hennessey's  grave  robbed?'  Yes,  says  Brod- 
erick. 'Glory  be  to  the  Lord!  He  was  my  own 
first  cousin,'  said  Dan,  'and  there  I  was  looking 
at  him  on  the  table  at  the  meeting ! ' 

"  'Hush !'  says  Carey  to  Dan.  'Don't  say  no 
more;  you  might  incriminate  yourself!'  'Oh!' 
says  Kelliher,  'that  damn  Dr.  McCarthy  is  to 
blame  for  all  this.' 

"Just  then  in  walks  McCarthy,  who  remarks: 


OLD  DAYS  IN  HALSTED  STREET  229 

*  God  save  all  here ! '  l  The  divil  save  you ! '  said 
Dan,  and  he  sprang  at  McCarthy. 

"'McCarthy  stepped  aside  and  said  to  Carey, 
'Mr.  Carey,  give  us  a  little  of  your  best  mois- 
ture, but  except  Mr.  Kelliher,  as  he  seems  to  be 
angry T 

' '  '  Anyway, '  says  Dan,  '  I  should  be.  I  'm  un- 
der arrest  for  robbing  the  grave  of  my  own  first 
cousin!' 

"  'Is  that  so!'  says  McCarthy.  'I  will  soon 
fix  that,'  and  he  went  into  the  next  room,  called 
Officer  Broderick  to  the  telephone,  and  when 
they  both  returned  McCarthy  said  that  the  cap- 
tain instructed  Officer  Broderick  to  keep  Kelli- 
her in  charge  at  Carey's  until  a  $1,000  cash  bond 
was  furnished. 

"Here,  McCarthy  and  Carey  left  them  all  in 
the  barroom  drinking  up  the  balance  of  Kelli- 
her's  initiation  fee  money  until  they  would  go 
and  fix  up  the  bond. 

"They  went  down  to  Loun  Freeman's  restau- 
rant, had  dinner,  and  then  returned  in  about  an 
hour  and  reported  the  bond  was  furnished  to 
insure  Dan's  appearance  when  the  case  was 
called.  The  detective  then  went  to  the  telephone 
and  pretended  to  call  up  the  captain,  and  he  re- 
ported that  all  was  0.  K. ;  and  turning  to  Dan 
said,  "Mr.  Kelliher,  you  are(  released  on  a 
$1,000  bond  furnished  by  your  two  friends  here, 
and  when  we  are  ready  for  trial  you  will  be  noti- 
fied. 

"Well,  Dan  was  never  notified,  for  McCarthy 


230  MOKENNA'S   STORIES 

and  Carey  told  Dan  they  had  his  case  settled  out 
of  court;  and  poor  Dan  was  tickled  to  death  at 
the  way  it  ended,  but  he  never  got  back  his  ini- 
tiation fee  money. 

"Like  murder,  all  these  kind  of  thricks  will 
out.  You  never  could  get  Dan  Kelliher  to  join 
any  society  after  that  without  the  consent  of  the 
clergy ;  but  it  cost  him  many  a  dollar  in  buying 
drinks  for  the  boys  to  keep  the  story  away  from 
reaching  the  ould  woman. 

"And  now  for  the  Mayo  policeman.  Anyone 
that  would  mention  anything  about  a  torpid 
liver  or  a  floating  kidney  in  his  presence  would 
be  assaulted.  And  Rolff,  the  butcher,  could 
never  be  convinced  but  that  his  supposed  friend 
and  neighbor,  Carey,  had  him  taken  away  from 
the  masquerade  ball  on  the  charge  of  murder,  as 
Rolff  would  say,  and  with  malicious  intent.  And 
this  is  but  a  few  of  the  many  thricks  thim  laddy- 
bucks  were  pulling  off  night  after  night  in  the 
old  days  at  Carey's  in  Halsted  street ;  'and  there 
you  have  it. '  " 


JERRY    DUGGAN    AIRING    HIS    VIEWS. 

At  the  last  regular  indoor  meeting  of  the  Sun 
Worshipers  Club  of  the  McKinley  Park,  we  had 
Jerry  Duggan  make  a  few  remarks,  and  here 
they  are:  "Begorra,"  says  Jerry,  "it's  a 
pretty  how  de  ye  do  anyhow,  when  ye  think  of 
the  predicament  we  have  the  people  of  the  world 
into  today. 

"They're  fighting,  plottin',  and  complainin' 
in  every  part  of  the  world  against  anything  and 
everything.  What  I'm  asking  myself  is,  can 
Eyan  with  all  his  statistics  point  out  any  other 
period  in  the  world's  history  where  the  people 
were  any  more  the  bigger  fools  or  more  uncivi- 
lized than  what  they  are  today?  And  with  all 
their  goings  on  they  do  be  havin',  they  all  say 
its  the  other  fellow's  fault  and  both  sides,  have 
whatever  preachers  they  have,  prayin'  to  the 
Lord  for  their  success — and  that  too,  with  such 
fervor  and  enthusiasm,  that  from  the  exertion 
they're  makin',  they're  as  sore  in  the  neck  as 
is  a  chicken  with  the  pip — and  they  all  think 
they  are  right.  Well,  sir,  whatever  it  is,  some 
wan  has  wished  a  hoodoo  on  us  and  it  is  workin' 
fast. 

"Some  preachers  say,  that  the  sin  of  thought 
is  as  bad  as  the  sin  of  action  when  you  give  in 
to  it.  Well,  sir,  if  this  be  the  case — in  these 
murtherin'  times  in  every  part  of  the  world 
today  with  those  av  thim  that  are  divided 


232  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

against  wan  another — think,  let  ye,  what  a  lot 
of  killin',  and  murderin'  we  are  doin'  in  our 
minds.  It  would  be  a  safe  bet,  and  a  hundred 
to  one  shot  at  that,  that  nine  people  out  of  every 
ten  you  meet,  have  in  the  last  year,  deliberately 
in  their  minds,  killed  the  Kaiser  and  sunk  doz- 
ens of  U-boats ;  and  killed  every  wan  on  board. 
This  would  be  the  kind  av  a  bet  that  Kelly  calls 
'a  cinch  bet'. 

"Now,  the  other  fellows  are  just  of  the  same 
frame  of  mind.  What  a  pleasant  world  we  are 
makin'  of  it !  If  we  could  believe  in  Ella  Wheel- 
er Wilcox's  theory  of  the  influence  of  mind 
waves,  but  be  dad,  I  have  no  faith  in  the  mind 
wave  theiry,  for  if  there  was  anything  in  that 
kind  of  theiry — with  all  the  wicked  mind  waves 
that  are  surging  though  space  today  all  over 
the  world  against  wan  another— sure,  if  they 
had  any  effect,  we  would  be  all  dead  in  a  week. 
"So,  says  I  to  myself,  says  I,  it's  like  makin' 
mind  bets  at  the  race  track — it  don't  get  ye 
nothin'.  Now,  I  was  askin'  Ryan  if  he  hadn't 
some  statistics  somewhere  in  his  books  that 
could  show  that  at  some  time  in  the  history  of 
the  world  that  the  people  were  livin'  in  peace. 
Ryan  says  he  has  naught — except  for  a  few  in- 
tervals, whin  they  were  waitin'  for  certain  peo- 
ple to  save  up  and  accumulate  something,  so's 
they  could  take  it  away  from  them.  That's  the 
only  statistics  he  has  on  periods  of  peace  and 
harmony  in  the  world. 

"Why  is  it,  says  I  to  Ryan,  that  the  people 


DUGGAN  AIRING  His  VIEWS  233 

are  so  much  more  fussier  and  fightin '  than  they 
have  been  in  the  past?  Ryan's  answer  is  that 
they  are  not.  It's  like  the  actor's  joke,  of  'why 
does  a  married  man  live  longer  than  a  single 
man?  And  the  answer  is,  he  does  not— it  only 
seems  longer.  So  it  is  now  with  the  people,  they 
are  just  the  same  as  they  ever  were,  but  we  are 
scattered  more  about  and  it  seems  different— 
that's  all. 

And  with  all  this — to  add  to  our  troubles,  here 
comes  Billy  Sunday  into  our  peaceable,  orderly, 
God-fearing,  and  God-loving  city,  to  open  up  a 
new  war  against  the  Prince  of  Divils,  Ould 
Beezlebub  himself —the  one  that  was  chased  out 
of  Heaven  for  being  conceited  and  a  kicker. 
Well,  sir,  Ryan  says  he  has  statistics  to  show 
that  Ould  Beezlebub  was  not  the  only  one  that 
lost  a  gODd  thing  for  being  conceited  and  making 
the  kick  at  the  wrong  time,  and  again  Ryan  says 
he  has  statistics  to  show  that  he  could  name  a 
lot  of  them  if  he  was  inclined,  that  will  be  there 
in  line  as  they  believe,  to  battle  against  the  Divil, 
'Ould  Beezlebub,'  as  they  call  him.  But,  if  they 
had  been  called  for  their  'first  offense'  as  the 
story  tells,  Ould  Beezlebub  was,  there  would  be 
but  a  small  meeting — and  the  ushers  would  re- 
quire no  rehearsing  or  drilling  to  care  for  the 
crowd.  And,  as  Ryan  says,  "some  of  thim 
would  have  no  trouble  in  having  them  use  less 
coal,  for  heat  would  be  the  least  of  their  wants 
—ice  would  be  what  most  of  thim  would  need. 
But  this  is  like  most  of  Ryan's  statistics — they 


234  McKENNVs   STORIES 

are  not  a  certainty,  for  the  reason,  as  my  friend 
Judge  Hopkins  would  say,  you  have  not  the 
1  Corpus  Delicti '  to  prove  your  case. 

Anyhow,  the  Ould  Divil  is  not  as  bad  as  the 
Kaiser  to  go  up  against,  for  he  don't  fight  back 
—the  divil  seems  to  have  the  gift  of  the  candi- 
date for  alderman — you  can  abuse  him,  say  all 
you  have  a  mind  to  against  him,  and  they  say 
he  never  loses  the  smile.  This  is  making  me  to 
change  my  mind  as  to  all  the  power  they  say  the 
Divil  has.  He's  blamed  for  everything  from 
sun-up  to  sun-down,  and  they're  at  him  for  ev- 
erything that  goes  wrong — they  say  it  was  his 
work. 

"Begorra,  if  he  had  the  power  to  do  the  many 
things  he  is  charged  with,  Ryan  says  again,  with 
his  statistics,  he  could  show  that  there  are  a  lot 
of  thim  here  below  that  the  Divil  would  order  to 
report  for  duty  forthwith. 

"Again,  Eyan  says  that  he  has  statistics  that 
will  show  av  the  only  record  av  where  anyone 
ever  spoke  a  kind  word  for  the  Divil,  and  Ryan 
says  it  was  an  Irishman  that  said  it.  The  rec- 
ord shows,  that  this  Irishman  was  goin'  up  a 
dark  alley — and  with  the  fear  that  was  in  him, 
he  kept  up  for  the  first  part  av  his  journey,  say- 
ing aloud  to  himself,  *  God  is  good.  God  is  good 
—but  when  he  got  far  up  into  the  alley,  and 
things  began  looking  worse,  says  he,  'God  is 
good,  and  the  Divil  is  not  so  very  bad  after  all. ' 
Well,  after  this  he  felt  more  at  ease,  and  made 


DUGGAN  AIRING  His  VIEWS  235 

his  journey  in  safety — that's  what  Ryan  calls 
'diplomacy'. 

"Anyhow,  Ryan's  statistics  show  that  we 
have  been  at  war,  fighting  and  killing  wan  an- 
other, from  that  far  back— well,  says  he,  there 
may  be  some  more  excavations  made,  now  that 
we  have  captured  Jerusalem  again — and  maybe 
some  new  statistics,  but  they  never  discovered 
any  statistics  yet  to  show  there  wasn't  fighting 
goin'  on,  killin'  and  robbin'  wan  another,  and 
blamin'  the  Devil  for  it  all — and  there  it's 
for  ye. 

"And  with  all  this,  we're  no  worse  today 
than  at  any  other  period  of  the  world's  history 
—and  the  only  improvement  we  have  made— 
we  have  become  more  efficient  in  the  means  av 
destruction,  both  physically  and  spiritually. 
For  the  physical  destruction  we  have  the  gas, 
the  submarine,  the  flyin'  machine,  and  the  big 
guns,  and  for  the  spiritual  end  of  it,  we  have 
the  highest  efficiency  in  the  world's  history,  in 
what  we  call  'Camouflage'— that  hides  a  multi- 
tude of  sins.  But,  as  Ryan  says,  were  the  same 
ould  two  and  six  pence  after  all — and  there  you 
have  it. 


CON    O'BRIEN    THE   41ST    PRECINCT   PHI- 
LOSOPHER. 

"Be  Gorra,"  says  Con  O'Brien  of  the  Forty- 
first  Precinct  Eepublican  Club,  "It's  spring 
again  sure.  I  heard  the  first  chirp  of  the  robin 
this  mornin',  and  tonight,  as  I  was  walkin'  up 
the  Archy'  road,  I  heard  the  loud  cackle  of  the 
candidates  for  alderman.  These  are  sure  signs 
that  spring  is  here. 

"And,  I  want  to  say,  it's  comfortin'  after  a 
hard  winter  like  we've  had,  with  a  shortage  av 
everything — and  all  the  world  at  swords'  point 
with  each  other,  to  hear  the  consolin'  talks  of 
the  candidates  for  alderman  tellin'  of  what 
they  will  do  for  the  comfort  of  the  community 
if  we  but  elect  thim  to  represent  us  in  the  City 
Council. 

"It  helps  to  allay  our  present  trouble  and 
removes  the  gloomy  mist  that  has  been 
hooverin'  over  us  all  this  long,  cold  winter, 
and,  as  I  was  sayin'  to  Pat  Price,  if  what  they 
say  nivir  comes  true  in  the  future,  it 's  as  sooth- 
ing for  the  present  as  is  the  dose  of  paregoric 
to  a  restless  child. 

"Wherever  these  candidates  for  alderman 
get  their  selection  of  promises  from,  I  don't 
know— but  they're  comfortin'  anyhow. 

"Whin  we  come  to  think  of  how  the  people 
of  the  world  have  been  actin'  against  one  an- 
other, and  to  think  that  even  with  all  this  there 
is  still  left  in  the  world,  men  gifted  as  are  the 


CON  O'BRIEN,  THE  PHILOSOPHER        237 

candidates  for  alderman,  so  that  their  every 
word  is  a  promise— that  if  such  as  they  say  is 
ever  accomplished,  nothing  but  pleasure  and 
harmony  will  prevail  all  over  the  world,  and 
that  our  every  want  will  be  satisfied. 

"The  joy  of  riding  in  the  kind  of  a  street  car 
such  as  they  predict— even  if  it  nivir  comes 
true — is  a  lasting  joy  in  the  listening  of  thim 
tell  of  it. 

"Taxes  will  be  the  least  of  our  many 
troubles,  for,  as  they  show  us  and  explain  it 
with  statistics,  that  if  we  will  but  elect  thim, 
there  is  a  new  way,  whereby  these  little  trouble- 
some things  can  be  avoided- — but  they  nivir  say 
whin  or  how— anyhow,  it  sounds  well  and  does 
us  good  while  we're  listenin'  to  it. 

"As  to  work — the  hours  of  work— and  the 
pay,  'leave  that  to  me,'  say  the  candidates.  'We 
know  what  ye  want.  We  know  all  that  is  re- 
quired for  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  you 
all,  namely,  good  health,  good  wages,  good  ap- 
petites, and  plenty  of  money.  Now  that's  what 
all  of  ye  ought  to  have,'  say  the  candidates, 
and  0'  how  soothing  they  say  it!  They're  just 
that  gifted,  that  they  can  lead  us  up  to  where 
we  think  we  have  our  hands  on  the  very  things 
we've  been  wantin',  when,  suddenly  they 
change  the  subject,  and  as  Barney  O'Flynn 
says,  they  have  only  told  us  that  which  we  all 
knew— but  they  forget  in  their  enthusiasm  and 
excitement  to  tell  us  whin,  where,  and  how  we 
will  get  all  the  good  things  they've  mentioned. 


238  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

But,  anyhow,  it's  a  pleasure  to  listen  to  thim. 
'•Now  thin,  Mac,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  for 
forty  years  past  there  never  was  a  spring  elec- 
tion came  but  I've  had  the  heels  of  my  shoes 
worn  off  chasing  around  singin'  the  praises  of 
some  candidate  for  alderman,  and,  be  gorra, 
I've  heard  enough  of  promises  made  durin' 
that  time  by  candidates  for  alderman  that  if 
they  were  ever  executed  and  put  into  practice, 
every  preacher  in  the  city  would  lose  his  job; 
for  the  pictures  that  the  preachers  draw  of  the 
heavenly  world  of  which  they  promise  and  tell 
about  would  be  but  a  poor  second  to  offer  as 
to  the  world  that  would  have  been  made  out  of 
aldermanic  candidates'  promises.  Anyhow,  I 
find  that  it  does  not  make  much  difference  to 
the  candidates  if  those  who  have  been  disap- 
pointed on  previous  promises  fail  to  respond 
with  their  support;  for,  as  each  year  rolls  by,  a 
new  crop  comes  upon  the  scene,  and  the  same 
stories  that  enchanted  and  deceived  the  ould 
bunch,  works  on  the  new  crop  of  recruits  with 
the  same  effect  as  it  had  on  the  ould,  and  so  it 
will  be  until  the  end  of  our  troubles.  'You  can 
fool  all  the  people  all  the  time,'  Ould  Kellar, 
the  Magician,  would  say,  but,  says  he,  'you  have 
to  have  a  new  trick  to  do  it  with,'  and,  wherever 
the  candidates  for  alderman  get  them,  they 
have  them,  and  there  it's  for  ye." 


DOUGHERTY'S  ST.  PATRICK'S  DAY. 

"Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  Dougherty,  'St. 
Patrick's  day  is  a  great  day  after  all.  I  spent 
tins  St.  Patrick's  day  below  at  West  Baden 
Springs,  in  Indiana.  Anyhow,  it  was  a  great 
day— as  fine  a  day  as  ever  I  see  in  onld  Ireland. 
The  sun  was  shining,  the  birds  singin',  and  the 
flowers  on  the  lilac  bushes  were  in  full  bloom. 
The  golf  links  was  crowded  with  the  Irish  and 
the  Chosen  People— they  were  all  decorated 
with  the  green  ribbons  and  the  green  neckties, 
in  honor  of  St.  Patrick.  Well,  sir,  you'd  think 
you  were  back  home  in  the  ould  sod,  for  the 
trees,  the  grass,  and  the  hill-sides  were  all  ar- 
rayed in  green,  and  anyhow,  as  Barney 
O'Flynn  said,  'it  was  a  great  day  for  the  Irish.' 
It  was  roast  young  duck  for  every  meal,  and 
the  hotel  band  worked  thimselves  tired  at 
playin'  'The  Star  Spangled  Banner,'  'The 
Wearin'  of  the  Green',  'God  Save  Ireland,  Says 
the  Hero',  'Come  Back  to  Erin,  Mavourneen', 
and  Moore's  melody  'The  Last  Rose  of  Sum- 
mer. ' 

"Well,  sir,  it  kept  up  from  8  A.  M.  until  mid- 
night, and  the  divil  the  thing  stronger  than 
Pluto  and  No.  7  spring  water  did  any  of  thim 
have  aboard. 

"Whin  Barney  O'Flynn  see  all  the  chosen 
people  with  the  green  badges  on,  says  he  to  me, 
'Dougherty,  it's  a  safe  bet  to  follow  thim  chaps, 
for  if  there  are  any  good  things  to  be  had  any- 


240  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

where,  they'll  be  there.'  At  any  rate,  from  all 
I've  seen,  I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it's 
an  aisier  job  to  become  a  successful  saint  than 
it  is  to  become  a  successful  politician — and  for 
to  be  remembered  and  honored  longer  after- 
wards as  a  saint,  than  you'd  be  as  a  politician, 
no  matter  how  much  good  you  may  have  done ; 
and  the  reason  is  this,  as  Billy  Sunday  says, 
'There  is  room  enough  for  all  at  the  mourner's 
bench,'  but,  be  dad,  at  the  political  bench,  there 
is  only  room  for  the  chosen  few.  Anyhow,  you 
see,  for  the  lack  av  funds,  as  they  put  it,  your 
City  Council  failed  to  provide  the  usual  holiday 
for  the  best  av  thim  all,  our  dear,  beloved  Wash- 
ington. Well,  with  the  saints,  all  they  have  to 
do  is  to  do  the  right  thing,  and  whin  they've 
done  that,  every  one  admits  that  what  they  did 
was  right,  and  in  doing  right,  they  have  no 
chance  to  take  that  some  person  or  party  may 
loose  their  meal  ticket  as  a  result  of  their  good 
deeds;  but  this  is  not  so  in  politics,  as  there  can 
come  no  good  to  the  opposition,  from  the  ad- 
mitting of  the  good  deeds  of  the  ruling  power, 
and  there  it's  for  ye. 

"Now  thin,  with  the  politicians,  they're  all 
patriotic  and  they  all  believe  in  our  institu- 
tions, but  there  is  not  enough  meal  tickets  to  go 
the  rounds— hence  we  have  opposition;  and  we 
all  want  to  be  the  ones  that  will  conduct  the  af- 
fairs of  the  government,  and  it's  long  since  been 
discovered  by  the  politician  that  there  will  be 
no  meal  tickets  coming  from  singin'  the  praises 


DOUGHERTY'S  ST.  PATRICK'S  DAY        241 

or  celebratin'  the  memory  of  anyone  that's  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  political  fence,  no  mat- 
ter how  good  he  is  or  has  been.  For  instance, 
it's  many's  the  rogue  has  held  his  meal  ticket 
for  a  long  time  on  the  good  deeds  that  our  be- 
loved Lincoln  had  done,  and  many's  the  bum  act 
and  the  bum  actor  that've  won  a  glad  hand  whin 
all  else  failed  thim,  by  just  wavin'  Old  Glory.' 

"So  you  can  see  that  the  politician,  can't  as 
a  safety  first  proposition,  admit  of  any  good  in 
the  opponent,  without  making  a  sacrifice,  and 
accordin'  to  the  new  political  etiquette,  it's  not 
permissible ;  so  you  can  see  how  hard  a  job  it  is 
to  make  a  political  saint  that  will  be  honored  or 
remimbered  for  any  great  lingth  of  time. 

"For,  whin  the  opponent  is  in  power,  to  ad- 
mit of  any  good  that  could  come  from  thim, 
would  only  be  prolongin'  the  day  whin  we,  of 
the  opposition  could  be  distributin'  the  loaves 
and  the  fishes  and  conductin'  the  affairs  of  the 
country  for  the  interests  of  ourselves  and  the 
dear  people. 

"It's  not  the  good  deede  av  the  powers  that 
be  that  we're  looking  for,  but  the  bad  ones;  for 
the  political  good  deeds  of  the  ruling  power  has 
no  soothin'  effects  on  the  opposition. 

"So,  McKenna,  I'm  tell  in'  ye,  it's  harder  to 
become  a  successful  politician,  to  be  long  re- 
membered and  kindly  spoken  of,  than  it  is  to 
become  a  successful,  kindly  spoken  of,  and  ever 
remembered  saint,  and  there  ye  have  it." 


OULD   ANTHONY   DEVLIN   IN   A   REMINI- 
SCENT MOOD. 

"Well,  sir,  McKenna,"  says  old  Anthony 
Devlin,  "the  Spring  election,  like  the  cold 
weather  we've  had,  is  now  gone,  but  like  the 
aldermanic  candidates'  promises,  the  cold  win- 
ter and  all  the  auxiliaries  that  came  and  wint 
with  it,  includin'  young  Garfield  and  ould 
Hoover,  with  their  orders,  and  the  ould  divil  av 
a  kaiser  with  his  gas  bombs  and  sub-marines, 
are  things  that'll  be  long  remembered. 

"Well,  sir,  there's  one  thing  that  the  election 
does  settle,  and  that  is,  it  reduces  the  surplus 
of  many  a  foolish  man's  savings  account,  and 
it  puts  thim  wise  to  the  fact  that  they're  not 
near  so  popular  as  they  thought  thimselves  to 
be— but  all  this  is  but  transitory,  for  as  the  ould 
sayin'  is,  'there's  a  new  sucker  born  iviry 
minute. ' 

"Ryan,  the  statistician  of  the  Sun  Worship- 
ers Club,  asks,  and  says  he,  'judging  from  my 
statistics,  why  is  it  that  so  many  min  spind  so 
much  of  their  time,  money,  and  energy  in  seek- 
ing political  office  or  jobs!'  whin,  says  he, 
'there's  nine  hundred  and  ninety  min  engaged 
in  other  vocations,  where  less  anxiety,  less 
money,  and  less  energy  is  required,  and  who 
are  marked  'XXXX'  in  Dunne  and  Bradstreets' 
reports,  to  the  one  out  of  a  thousand  that's  en- 
gaged in  the  political  game  that  even  gets  a 


OULD  DEVLIN  REMINISCENT  243 

mintion  of  'blank-blank'  in  the  Dunne  and 
Bradstreets  reports? 

"Well,  says  I  to  Eyan,  politics  is  like  love, 
whin  you  git  into  it,  the  divil  the  thing  ye  can 
see  but  the  one  thing,  and  that's  the  thing  that's 
got  ye.  For  I've  seen  many's  the  ould  poor 
fellow  that  the  wife  and  himself  worked  for 
years  from  daylight  until  dark  conductin'  some 
business,  stinting  thimselves  on  everything  to 
save  up  the  pennies,  and,  who,  after  all,  fell  for 
a  'Charmer',  in  the  person  of  a  scheming  poli- 
tician that  had  some  kind  of  an  ax  to  grind. 
Well,  the  charmer  saw  that  he'd  the  money,  and 
knew  that  if  he'd  become  a  candidate,  'twould 
help  the  charmer  to  grind  his  ax. 

"Well,  sir,  the  charmer  leads  his  subject  to 
believe  he  is  so  popular,  and  that  he  has  that 
talent  that  he'd  be  useful  to  mankind,  if  he'd 
only  permit  himself  to  become  the  candidate  for 
some  important  office,  where  his  valuable  ser- 
vices and  knowledge  might  benefit  his  fellow- 
man  and  neighbors. 

"Anyhow,  from  the  day  he  falls  for  that  kind 
of  blarney,  he  is  like  the  man  in  love :  he  is  mes- 
merized, and  in  a  trance  as  it  were,  and  nothing 
— but  the  decision  of  the  people  at  the  election 
can  revive  him. 

"But,  'Me  0,  My!'  says  Devlin,  'whin  he  do 
come  too,  he  can  see  four  ways,  but  he  can't  see 
any  of  his  saved  up  hard  earnings,  (in  the  way 
of  money)  for  the  'charmer  that  he  fell  for,  has 
used  it  all  in  propaganding  his  cause,  tryin'  to 


244  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

make  the  voters  believe  that  he  possessed  the 
gifts  that  the  charmer  had  convinced  him  he 
had  beforehand.' 

"  'I  remember,'  says  Devlin,  'an  instance 
where  the  charmer,  the  politician,  had  spent 
near  all  the  money  of  his  candidate  in  tryin'  to 
advertise  himself,  and  at  the  same  time,  con- 
vince the  community  that  his  candidate's  cause 
was  just  and  right,  and  that  he'd  ought  to  be 
elected.  Barney  O'Flynn  happened  along,  and 
says  Barney  to  the  Charmer,  '  the  man  that  has 
the  right  word  in  him  that  would  make  your 
candidate  popular  and  his  cause  to  appear  just 
and  right,  has  not  spilt  the  word  out  of  him  as 
yet — else,  says  Barney,  how  would  you  have  all 
the  opposition  you're  havin"?  Now,  here  it  is 
for  ye,  says  Barney,  'find  some  one  that  can  say 
the  right  word  or  your  work  is  in  vain,  other- 
wise, leave  off  with  your  righteousness  argu- 
ment and  depend  on  your  money,  and  maybe 
that'll  do  the  thrick.'  And,  there  it's  for  you. 

"Anyhow,  it's  as  Doherty  says,  'There's  very 
few  of  thim  that  start  into  the  political  game 
on  corn  beef  and  cabbage  that  ivir  ind  up  on 
birds  an'  wine,  but,  says  he,  it's  many  the  one 
that  started  in  on  birds  an'  wine,  that've  fin- 
ished on  corn  beef  and  cabbage.'  And,  there 
ye  are. 

"Anyhow,  whin  a  man  has  made  a  success 
out  of  some  business,  big  or  small,  afthir  he  an ' 
the  ould  woman  have  been  for  years,  rakin'  an' 
scrapin',  stintin'  thimselves  to  save  up  the 


OULD  DEVLIN  REMINISCENT  245 

pennies,— whin,  a  man  like  that  falls  for  the 
political  charmer,  the  only  remedy  for  him,  is 
for  the  ould  woman  to  take  him  to  the  Deten- 
tion, Hospital  and  have  his  head  felt.  And 
there  it's  for  ye. 

"Now,  if  a  lot  of  tliim  would  only  stop  to 
think  that  bein '  elected  to  office  will  not  enhance 
their  reputation  for  honesty,  nor  will  it  change 
their  complection  or  height— and  even  after 
they  get  elected,  if  by  chance  they  do,  if  they 
are  short  of  brains  or  qualifications,  fitting 
thim  for  the  position — they'll  find  that  the  cer- 
tificate of  election  will  add  nothing  to  thim,  and 
that  office  or  no  office,  they  are  the  same  ould 
two  and  six-pence  as  they  were  a 'fore  the  elec- 
tion. And,  there  ye  are. 

"Now  thin,  in  Chicago,  with  all  the  mixed 
nationalities  we  have,  and  where,  in  a  great 
number  of  cases,  the  only  qualifications  of  the 
candidate  is  his  name  or  nationality,  with  these 
conditions,  Ryan  says,  that  his  statistics  show, 
that  thousands  of  min  have  ruined  their  future 
prospects  on  account  of  having  been  taken  tim- 
porarily  away  from  the  shovel,  the  lumber  pile, 
and  the  factory,  where  they'd  been  useful  citi- 
zens, and  placed  in  a  temporary  political  job, 
upon  the  chance  election  of  one  of  their  townies 
or  countrymen.  After  the  short  term  of  the  of- 
fice is  over,  and  after  they've  been  spoiled,  it's 
'back  to  the  shovel,  the  lumber  pile,  or  the  fac- 
tory with  thim.'  This  has  put  more  min  on  the 
blink  than  Billy  Sunday's  statistics  can  prove, 


246  MCKENNA'S   STORIES 

whiskey  has.  You  may  scowl  at  this,  says  Ryan, 
but  'tis  true. 

"  Anyhow,  if  you've  any  means  at  all,  'tis  far 
better  for  you  to  keep  out  of  politics,  as  it 
naither  improves  your  reputation,  your  health, 
nor  your  bank  account,  and  Ryan,  with  his  sta- 
tistics, can  show  you,  that  it's  only  one  out  of  a 
hundred  thousand  that  was  ever  cut  out  for  the 
job. 

"Of  course,  there 're  exceptions  to  iviry  rule, 
and  so  in  some  cases  we  find  the  men  with 
nayther  money  nor  good  reputation  who  are 
doing  better  in  politics,  considerin'  what  they 
had  to  come  in  on,  than  they  could  do  in  any 
other  vocation.  And,  there  ye  have  it. 

"But,  anyhow,  politics  is  but  a  rich  man's 
game,  for,  'tis  like  keep  in'  the  automobile.  Jerry 
Dugan  had  a  little  Ford,  and  with  his  pay  from 
the  water  pipe  extension  department,  he  could 
manage  to  keep  the  little  Ford  in  gasoline,  but, 
whin  his  first  cousin  Jerry  Kelliher,  the  con- 
tractor, gave  him  a  big  ould  Packard  for  a 
present,  Jerry  wint  into  bankruptcy  in  tryin'  to 
keep  it  up  with  supplies,  and  'tis  just  so  with 
the  political  office.  If  a  poor  man  ever  gets  an 
office  for  nothin',  it'll  bust  him,  or  have  him  in 
jail  from  tryin'  to  keep  up  a  front.  And,  there 
'tis  till  ye,  as  Barney  Mulligan  says. 


A     000  757  567     3 


